The Family G-Man: Confessions and Connections by Neoxphile&FelineFemme
by neoxphile
Summary: During the final month of winter in 2006 the past catches up to people in unexpected ways - an old friend brings a case to the X-Files, William's new playmate may be more than she seems, and Emily learns family secrets that leave her shaken.
1. The New Guy

Title: The Family G-Man: Confessions and Connections  
Authors: Neoxphile and FelineFemme  
Spoilers: the X-Files seasons one through nine, "The Family G-Man," and "The Family G-Man: One Fine Summer" (both here on ffnet under author Neoxphile)  
Rating: PG-13

Summary: During the final month of winter in 2006 the past catches up to people in unexpected ways - an old friend brings a case to the X-Files, William's new playmate may be more than she seems, and Emily learns family secrets that leave her shaken.

Authors' note: if you didn't read the first two stories, you're going to be super confused, sorry. But we still read feedback on them ::grins::

* * *

The Law Offices of Dunkirk, Scott, and Johnson  
Norfolk, VA  
March 6, 2006  
11:36 p.m.

The young black woman in the stylish clothes and hairstyle behind the tasteful mahogany desk is yawning and stretching, feeling free to do so now that everyone is finally gone for the day. It's not the first time she's stayed in late for work, but it feels like she's been working overtime on a case based on nothing but the pleas of guilty men and a gut feeling. Nothing solid's come up yet to clear them, and she's getting frustrated with the lack of progress or evidence to prove their innocence. Everything says that there's no reason for a retrial on any of these cases, nothing except the prisoners themselves.

The phone on her desk rings, and she brightens, thinking perhaps it's one of her law enforcement contacts. But she recognizes the number, and her expression dims due to guilt. "I'm sorry, honey," she apologizes, and puts a hand to her mouth to smother another yawn, "but I won't be home for another hour or so."

"I guess I'll see you Friday," the man on the other end sighs.

"I hope so." She makes a face. "I'm sorry, Stan."

"Me, too," he says.

"Love you."

"Love you, too," he says, then hangs up.

She puts her face in her hands. _Of course, Stan would call my office line to get me to pick up_, she thinks, _just like I know to ask for "Mr. Stanford Delgado" at his job to get a hold of him. How long will we stay together like this?_

Well, that's another mystery. She sighs, then gathers all the files together and starts putting them into her briefcase. She can stare at the damn things tomorrow, after she's gotten a good amount of sleep in her system. And a shower. Definitely a shower.

And on that note, Amy Penda Harrison walks out of her law office, shutting off lights as she goes and intending to call her half-sister, who she can count on to be awake despite the hour. Because if anyone is into mysteries enough not to mind the very late night phone call, especially weird mysteries based on hunches and guesses, it's her half-sister Leyla.

* * *

March 7

12:33 p.m.

It's been a good day on the set of "Jose Chung" but one wouldn't know it by the hushed conversation between two of the four stars in the hallway during a break in filming. Aldous Reed has been surprisingly well-tempered today, possibly because his latest book is in the top five on the bestseller's list, which has led to a more pleasant discussion on-air rather than the usual acrimonious debate.

Once cameras stop rolling, Reed pulls out his cell phone to talk with his agent about daytime talk show interviews, while Mary Green waves at Mulder and Scully before pulling out her own phone to chat with one of her colleagues about his work on advanced cases of dementia in young patients, trying not to look at Reed as she does so.

Mulder and Scully, however, have their own private agenda that doesn't need airing in front of their cohosts. "Maybe we should check on the new nanny again," Scully suggests as they headed down the hall to their separate dressing rooms.

Mulder sighs, even though he, too, has his misgivings. "I told you, the Gunmen would let us know if anything was hinky."

His wife gives him a look. "I can't believe we're letting the *Gunmen* spy on our new nanny," she mutters. "And trusting them to give us an accurate report."

"If anything, we should trust Frohike." Mulder smiles a little. "He'd be the first to squeal."

Both Scully's eyebrows are raised. "I would think that would be Byers."

"Yeah, but Byers tries to be impartial. Frohike wants to get on your good side no matter what, Ms. Dana," he drawls and waggles his eyebrows.

"Ugh." She rolls her eyes. "One would think that his fiancée would keep him busy enough."

It's still difficult for either of them to wrap their heads around the fact that a confirmed bachelor like Frohike is getting married. To a woman with two half-grown children no less. But still, he and Steph seem happy… "Yeah, well, like I said, we should trust Frohike if anything about our new nanny sets off his sensors. And there's a backup plan in case something does happen, remember?"

Now Scully stops. "That really doesn't make me feel any better, Mulder."

He puts his hands up in surrender. "So far, we haven't heard a peep from the guys, and our kids haven't bugged us. It's a safe assumption to say that everything's okay, right?" he says in a placating tone.

There's another look. "Right," she finally says, and Mulder breathes easier. "See you in five."

"Okay." He smiles at her, and they disappear into their respective dressing rooms.

Once their doors are locked behind them, they grab their cell phones and hit speed dial. And are frustrated to get a voice mail, but only because they've dialed at the same time, not that they'd know that.

* * *

Meanwhile, now that he's picked them up from their preschool, the new nanny's rather busy taking care of Zoe and Brianna, while making sure that William is playing nicely with the cats who are now getting crotchety in their old age. Any and all surveillance devices around the house (none in the bathrooms, for privacy's sake) haven't been detected by the new nanny, thanks to the Lone Gunmen's years of extensive stalking, er, training.

If anything, it looks like a boring, unedited home video of babysitting. There was a mass exodus of children and parents leaving earlier that morning, giving the nanny a short list of errands for the half of his day without any kids to look after as well as the usual last-minute instructions by said parents about their youngest children, but all in all, nothing too extreme. After all, William's a big boy at nearly five, and Brianna and Zoe are just a year and a half younger than their brother, so they're old enough to walk, talk, and feed themselves.

No, wait, that's an excellent way to get into trouble. Fortunately, their new nanny is well acquainted with how kids get into trouble, and has taken precautions, verbal and physical, to prevent most of that from happening. "Most" that is, because any trouble that happens will be caused by him. At least, that's what Alan Carruthers plans, and his plans usually work out, especially since he's got the physique of a linebacker, the face of a scarred bouncer, and the mind of a prankster.

Alan grins a gap-toothed grin down at the three kids, then says, "Hey, wanna go outside?"

The twin girls look at each other, then nod at him seriously, while William grins with the equally gap-toothed grin of a mischievous little boy. "Where're we goin'?" he asks.

Alan narrows his eyes at the windows, then nods to himself. "We're going to the park," he says, "it's a great day to go wandering."

"What's wanerin?" Zoe asks as Alan finds their jackets.

"Wandering means walking around, looking at stuff, and maybe bringing something back home," he answers. "Okay, Big Will, can you put this on?"

William nods, shrugging into the coat, more than a little pleased to be called "big." His sisters, however, need help with putting on their jackets, so he waits as Alan does that. "Don' worry, I can put on my shoes all by myself, too."

"Cool," the nanny says, "I knew I could count on you."

The little red-headed boy grins at the man who reminds him of his Uncle Charlie in smile, if not looks. "Alan?" he asks, when his pull-on shoes are firmly on his feet.

"Yeah?" The man looks up from fastening Brianna's right shoe.

"Are you gonna sleep over, too? Michelle used to sleep over. Erin didn't, though." Erin had only been a temporary nanny, staying just long enough for the kids' parents to find someone who was interested in sticking around.

Before they'd engaged Erin as a temp, Teena had volunteered to look after the three littlest kids when they weren't in their half day preschool/kindergarten classes, but Mulder and his wife had nearly tripped over their own tongues in the haste to say that wouldn't be necessary. Teena has become far more involved in the kids' lives, but Mulder didn't want to tax that and possibly damage their improved relationship with her. He'd thought she'd actually looked a little relieved when they'd declined.

Alan smiles, and fastens on Brianna's shoes. "I have my own home to sleep in," he says, "besides, the beds are too small here." And he stretches out to demonstrate his point, to the giggles of his audience. "Okay, Zoe, your turn for shoes."

"I don't wanna go shoes," she says, kicking her feet at him.

"Your mean you don't want to wear shoes," he corrects her and fastens on her shoes just as easily. "Too bad. I don't want to explain to your parents why you came home with dirty feet."

As she stomps around with her shoes, the new nanny easily picks up the three stacked child seats, then holds out his hand. "Okay, Will, I need you to do a big favor for me. Can you do that?"

"Okay," the little boy says.

"We're gonna make a kid sandwich," he says, "I'm gonna hold Zoe's hand, Zoe, you hold Brianna's hand, and Will, you're gonna hold Brianna's hand. So it's boy, girl, girl, boy. A kid sandwich," he grins. "Got it?"

William grins back, proud to be considered a big boy rather than just part of the kid sandwich. "Got it."

"Here we go," their new nanny says, and leads them outside, away from the tons of surveillance set up especially for them, and into his car, which hadn't been bugged at all.

* * *

Shirlington Park  
1:30 p.m.

It really is a beautiful day, and there are a number of people out walking their dogs, since it's a dog-friendly park. More than once, families with very small children have nearly walked away with a four-legged friend, but fortunately for the dog owners, that hasn't happened yet. It's rather quiet for a Tuesday, especially since it's a school day, except for the occasional dog barks.

A red-headed boy and two brunette girls emerge from walking through the Four Mile Run path, their hands and feet dirty, tired but in good spirits. The lone adult with them is likewise dirty in his hooded sweatshirt, but in fairly good spirits himself, and continues to be so, until he's tackled by a man wearing a black jacket. "Stay back!" the man in the black jacket yells, but is then punched in the face by his would-be victim.

"What the hell?" The giant man in the dirty hoodie glares, getting to his feet, but keeping an eye on the kids he came with. To his surprise, there's another child with them, and they seem friendly enough with him. "Kids, stay back!"

"Uncle Alex!" the red-headed boy shouts. "Don't hurt Alan!" The girls are also screaming, but less intelligibly.

"Uncle?" Alan frowns, then does his best to adopt a defensive rather than offensive posture, since he seems to be related. "Uncle Alex," however, has no problems not holding back, however, so Alan sighs, let the guy try to do his worst (which wasn't bad, really), before pinning him down, his arms behind his back, when Will, the girls, and the little strawberry blond boy runs up to them. To Alan's shock, he ends up with an arm in his hand and nearly screams before he realizes he hasn't maimed the guy. Someone has obviously beaten him to that.

"Stay back, he's dangerous," Alan warns them, still giving the detached arm a semi-incredulous look. "Call 911."

Leather-jacket guy twists his head up with a disbelieving look of his own, then starts laughing. "Kids, your parents are so narrow-minded," he wheezes, as the other little boy's face goes from worried to relieved. "Lemme up, big guy, you passed."

What the hell? Alan thinks, as the Mulder kids rush up and also jump on the guy's back. "Why'dja have to hurt him, Uncle Alex?" Will asks. "Alan's our new nanny."

"I know," Uncle Alex says in a strangled tone from being sat on by several bodies, "but you panicked everyone when you left the house without notifying anyone."

"That's 'cause we're _wandering_," Will explains. "We saw all sortsa cool stuff, stuff you can't get inside the house."

"I bet," Uncle Alex says. "Hey, big guy, mind getting the hell off me now? I promise not to move if you promise to reattach my arm."

The new nanny narrows his eyes, but when he sees all four kids looking up at him with puppy dog eyes, he sighs. "Fine, for the kids, not for you," he says, and gets up carefully, letting go of the fake arm last. "You fight like a thug, but you look like ex-CIA or military. What do you really do?"

The man in the leather jacket raises his eyebrows. "Wow, the recommendations do not do you justice," he said. "Let's just say I'm an ex and leave it at that. Why are you a nanny?"

Alan blinks, then smiles. "I like kids," he says, "if I'm lucky, I'll have some of my own someday."

"And if you're not lucky?" Alex prompts, as the boy who isn't Will runs over and grabs his fake hand like it's real.

The huge nanny sits down on his haunches and made a parody of an old man's face. "Then I'll live alone with a thousand cats," he says in a creaky voice, making the girls giggle. "Or maybe five. Yeah, five sounds about right."

Alex gives him a look Alan was used to getting, then shrugs. "Man, you're just as weird as Mulder," he mutters, "figures. Sorry about that," he says, holding out a hand to shake, "I'm Alex Krycek, father of this awesome boy and two little girls, and uncle to these troublemakers and their big siblings. Welcome to the crazy family of ex-FBI agents Mulder and Scully."

"Alan Carruthers, but you knew that," the brown-haired guy takes his hand with a wry grin. "I didn't realize I needed to run every decision past the parents. So, should I nix the extra field trip to McDonalds?"

The uncle smirks as his nieces and nephew wait with baited breath. "Normally, no," he says, "but I'm sure you must've realized something was up when you went through more security checks than an airport. McDonalds should be fine."

"I'm used to people being weirded out because not only am I a guy, I look like a big goon." Alan shrugs. "But yeah, it seemed a little over-the-top for people not in Congress or making seven figures."

Alex snorts. "Okay, now I'm not surprised by the nanny business. What I am surprised by is why you're working for a couple who's had more than their fair share of death threats and kidnappings, but none of the political pull or financial lure that you're used to dealing with."

The big guy shakes his head. "I always did like a challenge," he says, the scars on his face seeming to underscore that fact. "Besides, it's funny to see how people react when they see me after being introduced as 'the new nanny'. I usually get a less violent reaction, though."

"I'll bet," the uncle mutters. "Well, see you around, big guy. Hope the next person you meet doesn't take you out."

"As long as the kids are fine, it doesn't matter." Alan shrugs with an easygoing smile. "See you later, Mr. Krycek." As his charges wave to their uncle and cousin, he bends down again. "So, you ready for some Happy Meals?"

"Yeah!" the cheer goes out, and they all troop back through the tree-lined path to Alan's car.

Yeah, Alan Carruthers had had interesting first days on the job before, but he'd honestly expected it to be more low-key since they were stated to be ex-FBI. Oh well, guess the rumors about kidnappings and other kinds of crazy stuff about this family are true, he thinks, although he'd initially chalked it up to them being part of the TV show crowd aura.

* * *

The basement of the FBI  
1:55 p.m.

It's been interesting, working not only with John, but with Leyla Harrison, Reyes muses, especially since her partner for life has been on a kick to find successors. She supposes it's a good idea to look out for the future of the X-Files division, since it's been shut down before, but she usually likes to take things as they come. John's using his "lunch break" for some time with Rebecca upstairs, as they're using the FBI's childcare service in lieu of a nanny given they only have one non-school age child between them. That, and it's a good excuse to visit their little girl when things get slow, like they have today.

"So, how'd your lunch meeting go?" Reyes asks Leyla when the blonde agent walks in. No, scratch that, she practically bounces in. If it wasn't for Harrison's self-proclaimed klutziness and being on the math team, Reyes would've sworn she was a cheerleader in high school.

"It was awesome!" the younger agent chirps, her blue eyes shining. "I've got a case!"

"Oh?" Reyes raises her eyebrows. "What's it about?"

"It could be anything!" Harrison shakes her head. "I'm not sure whether to classify it as 'hypnosis', or 'possession', or even 'voodoo', but it's something, I know it!"

The brunette frowns, wondering if she should tell her about the case that earned her Mulder and Scully's acquaintance. Maybe later, she decides. "And now I'm confused. You said you were going out to have lunch with your sister, and you come back with a case that could be any number of things. What exactly did she tell you?"

"Here, have a mocha latte." Harrison plunks down a rather full and sweet-smelling paper cup with a plastic lid onto the desk. "My sister Amy, well, half-sister, actually, she's a prosecutor, and a very good one, too. But lately, her firm has been getting complaints from various criminals they've put away, people who were obviously guilty and even confessed to their crimes. The weird thing is, though, is that about a week into their prison stay, they suddenly snap and act like they were framed or want a retrial."

"Well, that's no surprise," Reyes says patiently, "most people do have a rude awakening when they go through more than a day of prison life."

"Yeah, but that's not the really weird part," Harrison goes on. "The weird part is that all of them, five so far, had all personally confessed to their crimes. And when they 'woke up', they all claimed to have seen an old woman shaking her head at them. Her ethnicity varies with theirs, but they've all seen her."

"Does she say anything to them?" Reyes leans forward, interested.

"Not that I know of," Harrison answers. "But once they see her, it's like they've woken up to jail suddenly. They said they felt like from the time they 'supposedly committed their crime'," she states and she puts her fingers up like quotation marks, "until the time they woke up, it was like sleepwalking or living underwater. But when they saw the old woman, that was like some kind of cue to wake up, so they did."

Reyes takes a sip of the mocha latte. Boy, was it sweet, but it sure beat the mud posing as coffee upstairs. "Did they see her in a dream, or did she seem present to them as part of their prison life?"

Now Harrison frowns. "I guess it was more like a vision. Like, she was suddenly in front of them, shaking her head, and then they woke up." Then she brightens considerably. "Weird, huh?"

"Yeah, definitely weird," Reyes says, already racking her brain for some kind of explanation. Harrison, quick as she is, managed to come up with quite a few theories, but Reyes isn't sure if any of them fit, or if there's another explanation altogether. Then she smiles. "I can't wait until John gets back. We're going to need everyone on this to talk to prisoners, the initial investigators, family members, see if there's any link between them."

"Well, that's part of what drove Amy up the wall." Harrison shrugs. "There seems to be no links between them. One was a child molester, another a car thief, two of them serial killers, and the last killed his grandmother for money. Three of them are Caucasian, one Puerto Rican and one African-American. The only thing they have in common is that they live in Virginia, but even then-"

"Different cities or types of neighborhoods, too," Reyes filled in, making her companion nod. "Same prison?"

Harrison shakes her head. "Amy thought of that, too, but no. She thought if that were the case, there would probably be more people jumping on the 'I've been hypnotized' bandwagon. Her words, not mine."

The brunette smiles. "No obvious connection, aside from the confession, sleepwalking and strange sighting. This is gonna be good."

"What's gonna be good?" Doggett asks as he walks in, a bounce in his step, although for a much different reason than Harrison's.

"I've got a case!" Harrison cheerfully declares, in the same way some women would say they have new shoes.

The smile on his face slides into something more like surprise, or perhaps shock. "You don't say," he says guardedly, glancing over at Reyes. She only lifts a shoulder and smiles, which doesn't help. "Okay, mind telling me what this is all about?"

So Agent Harrison launches into her second explanation of the case, with no less enthusiasm than she showed the first time around. That impresses Reyes, if not Doggett. "So, what do you think?" she asks, her eyes shining.

Reyes can almost read "Dear God, remind me why I'm training this girl" on his forehead, and smirks. He knew what he was getting himself into, honestly. It's not like he hadn't had a preview when Leyla had covered her maternity leave. Still, she is curious about Leyla's sister, or half-sister, and if she's a "very good prosecutor" as claimed.

* * *

_a/n: So...are we off to a good start? _


	2. Bedtime

The Mulder-Scully Home  
9:12 p.m.

It had been mortifying for Mulder and Scully to come home to their new nanny, who was surprisingly good-natured about the whole thing. Mortifying, because not only had they nearly come home from their filming after getting frantic calls from the Gunmen during their break, but they found that the godfathers had also sicced Krycek on the guy. Alan had explained that everything was cool between himself and "Uncle Alex," but hoped that there would be no future surprises like that. Mulder expressed similar sentiments, and was surprised that the big guy said he'd stay on. It's a good thing he had a good sense of humor about the whole thing, so Mulder resolved to re-read the guy's resume, since at the time it seemed more hyperbole than truth, even if a couple of the senators he knew had recommended him personally.

Scully, however, had felt more guilt than anything, even offered to bake him something to take home, but Alan had politely declined, saying he had a date. The three youngest were disappointed, but looked happy to see him the next day, while the others expressed varying degrees of envy and enthusiasm for William, Brianna and Zoe.

She resolves to herself that she'll take extra care of her babies while they're home, and waits after everyone was tucked in to do a full check while Mulder's re-reading Alan's resume.

That was why Scully is surprised to find William bouncing around past his bedtime, enthusiastically talking to an empty corner. "An' we were gonna take home the rocks, but Alan says the stream needed 'um more than we did. Don't worry, tho I'm gonna bring one rock for you, too," the little redheaded boy says.

"William, who are you talking to?" Scully asks gently, but curious all the same.

"Huh? Oh, no one." He jumps, almost guiltily. "I'm sorry, I'll go to sleep right now!" And he practically throws himself into bed and pulled the blanket over his head.

She smiles, shaking her head. "It's okay," she says, pulling his blanket down and kissing him on the head. "Just be sure to save playtime for when you're awake, not bedtime."

"Okay," William says, and shuts his eyes tightly.

His mother giggles, and goes to check on her baby girls. They weren't as excited as their older brother about their new nanny, as they were practically sleeping at the dinner table earlier. She smiles, then kisses both their sleepy little heads before rejoining her husband in bed.

"You should read this," Mulder says, handing a small sheaf of papers at her. "It makes for some interesting bedtime stories."

Scully smiles briefly, putting it in the bedside desk drawer. "William seems quite taken with Alan," she says, "he was practically bouncing around before."

Mulder raises his eyebrows, then groans. "Great, Will's best hero isn't his daddy anymore, it's Big Al." He pouts.

She snorts. "Big Al? Really?"

The pout stays on his face. "Well, he is big."

She smiles and kisses him on the nose. "You're being silly," she says, "You know that William's always going to go to you first."

He looks barely mollified, but agrees only after she showers the rest of his face with kisses.

* * *

March 9, 2006

The next couple of days go more smoothly for the Mulders' new nanny, mostly because he makes a point to check before leaving the house. Mulder still isn't entirely sure he trusts him, but he has a niggling feeling that part of it is low-level jealousy over the big guy making such a big impression on his youngest son. Deep down he knows that Scully's right, but still…

He figures that she's also right about spending extra time with the smallest kids when they get home from work, if only for the benefit of their own feelings more than the kids'. So he seeks them out as soon as they get home.

"How was school?" Mulder makes a point of asking William as soon as he sees him, not minding that Scully has snagged their small, muddy twins and is already marshaling the girls towards the bathroom for a dunking as they tell her about the mud pies they made.

Considerably less dirty than his younger sisters, the small red-haired boy sighs. "Okay."

It's all Mulder can do to keep from sighing himself. The school had surprised him and Scully back before Thanksgiving by asking if they could move William into the morning kindergarten class at New Year's. At first they objected, Scully more strenuously, because they didn't like the idea of him starting first grade in the fall when he'd barely be five years old, and therefore he'd be just a month past his seventeenth birthday when he graduated from high school. The school heard their concerns but expressed their own concerns that he wasn't getting much out of the pre-k curriculum. Then they suggested a compromise: a year and a half in the kindergarten program, where he'd get more stimulation. This compromised pleased everyone.

Except William.

Unfortunately, when all the grown up where concerned about how he was doing academically, none of them really stopped to consider how he was doing socially. So when they pulled him out of the class with the kids he'd gone to school with for a year and a half of his short life, it came as a surprise when he wasn't happy to be put with a new class of kids who were slightly older. Mulder and Scully hadn't worried about it because there was a fair amount of interaction between the threes and fours classes, which they'd always known considering how many times they'd had kids in those classes at the same times, but they hadn't stopped to consider that all of William's friends were the same age as him, even if the kids in his new class weren't complete strangers because they'd interacted some the year before.

But all the same, William has spent the last three months of school more or less miserable. He's an average size kid for his age, but being not quite yet five, that means that he's quite a bit smaller than the kids in his class who will soon be six. He doesn't talk about it much, but Mulder suspects that being the smallest kid in the class, even compared to the girls, is a big issue for him.

He and Scully have talked quite a bit about whether or not they should declare the attempt a failure and put William back in the class he started out in. However, they do think that school has the valid point, and hope that he will adjust.

At the moment, Mulder reacts by picking William up. This used to make him giggle, but now he looks affronted. "Daddy, I'm too big."

Mulder gives him a surprised look. "Too big for what?"

"To be picked up like a baby," William insists.

"Like a baby?" Mulder asks, feigning puzzlement. To William's shock, Mulder lays him across his arms, one arm under his knees now, making him gasp. "I think that you hold a baby like this," he tells him.

"You do!" William says breathlessly.

"And you rock them like this," Mulder asks, demonstrating a technique that he hasn't had the chance to employ with any of his offspring for about three years. "Don't you?"

William is not amused. "Put me down!"

Mulder continues to rock him, hoping to get a laugh out of him. He does eventually get a smile, but then William begins to look queasy. So he stops, and sets his youngest boy back on his feet. "So…?"

William rolls his eyes in a way that would make Scully and Page proud. "You didn't pick me up _like_ you do a baby, but I'm still too big to get picked up."

"Are you sure?" Mulder asks doubtfully. "What about when we let you stay up late to watch a movie, and you fall asleep. Should I wake you up and make you go upstairs?"

For a moment his son looks torn. Eventually he nods, but reluctantly. "Yeah, because big kids have to do that. You don't pick up Page or Sammy or April, you make them go upstairs by walking."

Mulder wants to tell him that it's different, because all three of them are so much older, but he doesn't. Usually, and maybe because he looks a little bit more like him than the other boys, Mulder thinks that William reminds him of Sammy the most. But right now, he's thinking about a conversation he had when David and Jared were about his age. Jared had gone through a phase of wanting to be different from his twin, and this strikes Mulder as somewhat similar. But instead of wanting to be different from them William wants to be more like his older siblings. And of course less like his two younger ones.

If it was Scully and William who were having the conversation, Mulder suspects that she would ask if he was being picked on at school, specifically if anybody had told him that he's a baby. And maybe if William continues to seem to have so many bad days at school he'll suggest that they have that conversation, but right now he doesn't want to be the one who brings it up.

So he says, "You're right, we make them go upstairs themselves. Spares our backs, you know." For half a second he wonders if he has just set himself up for a comment about how old he has to be, but William doesn't suggest anything like that.

"Then you don't need to take aspirin, right?" William asks earnestly instead.

"That's right." Because, really that is one positive effect of not lugging medium-sized sleeping humans around the house. Not really the point of making the older kids go up to bed on their own two feet, but nonetheless still true.

"So I would be kind of helping if I go to bed on my own, right?"

"Sure."

"Okay, good."

Mulder looks at him, wondering if he should suggest… Something. Growing up he had been fairly popular in school, at least until the year Samantha disappeared and he himself disappeared into depression. And none of their older kids, even the quiet ones, have ever expressed concern about not being able to make friends. So he's not sure how he should advise William to get the bigger kids to play with him.

"Dad, can we watch a movie tonight?" William wheedles.

This at least, makes Mulder smile. He reaches down and ruffles his son's hair, somewhat gratified when he doesn't get a scowl in return. "I'll ask mom."

"Oh. Good. You're good at making her want to do what you want to do," William says, before dashing out of the room on some sort of mission.

Mulder stares down the hall as he disappears. That sounded a lot like a very elementary way of saying that William thinks he manipulates Scully. But it isn't really like that, is it? he wonders. As far as he could always tell, she's been a willing party to his madness. Maybe the validity of that belief is something he should think about too.

* * *

Later that night Mulder is the one to tuck in Christopher and William. Since William is younger, he's put to bed first. His earlier bad mood has dissipated, and he's almost cheerful as he dresses after his bath.

"All done," he declares, wearing his favorite flannel pajamas. Most of his older siblings favored cartoons on their pjs at that age, but William likes a style that reminds Mulder of his grandfather's.

"Hey, oh, you missed a few buttons, kiddo," he points out.

William looks down. "Oops." Then he unbuttons the shirt and redoes it right. He's a lot better at it than his father would've predicted given he refused to dress himself even with help until he was three and a half.

"Much better," Mulder acknowledges. After William hops onto his bed, he asks, ''How was school?"

Since this is a bit of a loaded question, it's not surprising when William deflects. "It was school. How was work?"

This question charms Mulder so much he answers truthfully. "Pretty good. Reed's getting a lot of nice reviews for his new book so he was in a good mood. That made taping go better than usual this week."

"That's good."

"Yeah."

"But he's gonna be mad when he gets a bad one," William says as Mulder pulls up the covers.

"He's going to get a bad review?"

"Yup, a real bad one."

"Oh, are you going to write it?" he teases.

William takes the bait. "No! I can't read that good."

"But he's going to get a real bad review, huh. When?"

William yawns." Pretty soon."

"Oh, okay. Night, kiddo."

"Night, Daddy." William's head is on his pillow by the time Mulder turns off the light.

* * *

As Mulder walks down the hall, he hears a noise that makes him turn around: giggling. When he pushes open the door to his baby girls' room, he sees them in the glow of their night light. Both girls look up, surprised.

They look up at him because they're sitting on the floor in their night gowns (Zoe's is pink, Brianna's purple) with their tea set out, in the dark. Each girl has the stuffed bunny Monica gave them last Easter on her lap.

"What are you doing?" he asks, shaking his head.

Zoe gives him a bright smile, either oblivious to the fact they're doing something wrong or not caring about it. "Our bunnies aren't scareded of the dark neither!"

_Wow, that backfired,_ he groans silently. "Un uh, back in bed."

''Aww..." they complain as he picks them up and deposits them in their beds. Then he gathers the tea setup, deciding to take it with him.

"Go to sleep," he says firmly.

"Ok."

When he leaves he hopes that's the end of it.

* * *

This time he makes it all the way to Christopher's room without any more interruptions. Christopher is sitting at his desk and has his finger between the pages of a book when Mulder enters the room, so he must have been reading.

"Hi, Christopher," he greets his boy. He has the urge to apologize for taking so long, but he knows that none of the kids ever mind staying up a little later than usual.

"What's in the bag?" Christopher asks, giving the pink bag his father is holding a slightly apprehensive look.

"Oh. Your sisters' tea set."

"Why?"

After a moment Mulder realizes Christopher is afraid he'll be asked to play with it: he is the twins' most frequent, reluctant, human party guest. Somehow William manages not to hang around for that particular game, but Christopher never has the heart to deny them.

"Oh, I just needed to take it out of their room. So, how was school?"

"Good! Me and Addy and Timmy and Isabelle are going to start a club at recess."

"What kind of club?" None of the older kids were into them but Mulder's aware of the existence of things like Pokemon and Pogs so that's where his mind goes. Pogs might not be in any more, he reflects.

"Pictionary! That's cool, right?" The little blond boy looks to him for confirmation.

"Very." Selfishly, he's pleased that it doesn't involve the headaches of collecting or trading things.

"We hadda fill out a form and get the principal to approve it, but he did so we can start tomorrow."

_They had to petition?_ Mulder thinks, blinking. _And they did it without help? Wow_. "That's great."

Christopher climbs into bed. "I can't wait until recess. Maybe I'll dream about it."

"Maybe you will. Good night, Christopher,"

'See you in the morning," his son replies with a sleepy grin.

Mulder just barely remembers to take the tea set with him, but he does, bringing it to the playroom before he does anything else. For half a second he imagines the toys, bravely playing in the dark, but of course nothing's happening there.

* * *

Buckminster Fuller School of Design and Technology  
March 10

It's Friday night, which means it's packed in the computer lab. Fortunately, Luke and Gibson are reading their feedback emails in Gibson's room, which currently is roommate-less and therefore free for the guys to wail, laugh, and complain at some of the responses their test game has been getting.

" 'Game play too clunky, too much lag time.' Duh." Luke rolls his eyes, "We're just starting on this thing, don't expect us to be Capcom or anything right off the bat."

"Pretty sure even 'Doom' had its detractors in its development stages," Gibson mutters as he scrolls down. " 'Could do with more character design and development. Not sure if this is supposed to be RPG or action/FPS.' Damn, they got us."

Luke groans, his eyes roaming the ceiling. "It's hard enough putting the damn thing together with semi-decent graphics, we have to worry about character development and junk, too? Who wrote that, a girl?"

"Says Mr. Unlucky With the Ladies," Gibson intones sotto voce, ducking the half-joking punch his brother aims at his shoulder. In a normal tone, he continues, "Yes, she's a girl, and she has a good point. If we're making this our main game, then we should at least figure out which genre it is before wasting any more time and energy."

"And brain cells," Luke agrees morosely, then leans forward to look at the screen name. "Huh. And people say gamer girls are a myth." He glances at Gibson. "Your girlfriend excluded, of course. But she's… special."

"Jerk." Gibson snorts. "For the most part gamers are guys, yeah, but this college has more women going into the tech side of things than I figured at first, either."

"Okay, sociology lesson over, we gotta get an angle on this so our players are happy, which means Professor Greg is happy." Luke scratches the back of his head. "If we're going for multi-player, FPS is probably easier to do, since there doesn't have to be much of a storyline, but it can get boring fast. On the other hand, if we do an RPG, we're gonna be stuck writing code for character designs, different storylines, scenery and all that junk for ages. Too bad we can't farm that stuff out."

"I wish," Gibson sighs, and they both look depressed. They'd heard horror stories about people who'd tried to farm their work out to other students, hell, even Russians or Chinese, and they'd all got caught sooner or later. "I don't wanna chance it. Besides, if we want to market it eventually, we can't half-ass it at the beginning."

"Yeah, yeah," Luke waves a hand, then yawned. "Okay, how about this? We can fake an RPG based on our folks, so there's a combat level, kinda like an FPS, but not as boring. We can ask Dad and Monica about their latest cases, use the general stuff but nothing specific that can get us killed or sued, and that way, there's playability for a guy character and girl character."

Gibson blinks. "That's a pretty good idea. Why didn't I think of that?"

Luke smirks. "Because you've been thinking about dinner with Katie all day, and it's about fifteen minutes away. Doesn't take a mind reader to figure out what that goofy face means."

"Shut up," Gibson tries to growl as he slugs his brother, but ends up cracking up instead. "Shut up! I mean it!"

Luke is laughing, too. "Awwww, wuv, twu wuv," he imitates the priest on that movie Hannah likes to watch, his voice cracking as he does so.

"You're such an idiot," Gibson finally says, getting up to get his face cleaned up.

"Says the googly-eyed idiot." Luke grins as he leaves for his shift. Being a waiter in a dinky restaurant isn't glamorous, but it does give him a little extra spending money on actual video games. "See you tomorrow?"

"Sure," Gibson calls from the bathroom. "We can call Mon and Dad and see what their plans are for spring break."

"Will do," Luke says, locking the door behind him. He yawns again, then resolves to get some Red Bull in his system before he starts work. Last time he yawned in front of a customer, he lost a tip and got yelled at by his boss. _Good times_, he thinks sarcastically.

* * *

_a/n: talk to us, readers!_


	3. Growing Pains

_a/n: didn't someone say they wanted scenes with the big kids? Hmm, do you read minds, dear reader?_

_Please fill our stockings with feedback, folks =)_

* * *

March 13, 2006

It had been a rough day on the set - Reed has finally gotten a bad review on his book, and his response has been to make everyone who knows him miserable - so Scully wants nothing more than to curl up with a good book and a mug of hot coca. But as soon as she steps into the house, she realizes this won't be in her near future.

Sammy barely lets her take her coat off before seeking her out. "Mom, we have a problem," he solemnly informs her. He's as given to jokes as his father, but he's not definitely joking now.

"What kind of problem?"

"I don't know!" he blurts out, frustrated. "All I know is April wouldn't say anything on the bus, and now she won't come out of her room."

_We have a problem?_ she thinks, making a mental note to make sure she and Mulder privately commend him on taking being a big brother and looking out for his siblings so seriously. Bill junior took it seriously too, she muses, but he was a lot more obnoxious about it.

Looking down at him, which she realizes she won't need to do much longer, she says, "Thanks for the heads up."

"Yeah...Can I get a cookie?"

Normally sweets between meals are off limits, but... "Just one."

"Thanks!" he calls over his shoulder, already headed for the cookie jar he no longer has to climb on a chair to reach.

Scully shakes her head before scaling the stairs so she can check on April.

* * *

When she reaches her middle daughter's room, she gently wraps on the door. And when this gets no response, she knocks more forcefully and says "April? It's Mom."

She's trying to decide how to express her unhappiness at being ignored when she hears a faint sigh and the door opens. April's cheeks are red but she doesn't exactly look sad like Scully expects.

"Hi Mom," April says, an improvement over Page's occasional sullen "what?"

"Can we talk?"

April sits on her bed, motioning to her chair. "Who squealed, Sammy or Page?"

"He worries about you."

"I thought it'd be Page." April looks faintly surprised. "She seemed more bothered when I didn't talk on the ride home."

"You want to tell me what's wrong?"

"No," April predictably says. "But I will." That's a pleasant surprise. "Coach Miller came to talk to Jenna, Lydia and me at lunch."

The thought that a random adult could show up at the school to talk to kids does not fill Scully's heart with joy. Upon a moment's reflection it occurs to her how out of character the school allowing that would be, so she decides he must have cleared his visit with the office. When she notices April's frown she stops over-thinking it and asks "What for?"

All of the sudden April seems like she's about to cry. She manages to pull herself together, though. "He said we're all really good players." Jenna and Lydia are on April's little league team too. "And... and we should start thinking about playing softball."

_Uh oh_, Scully thinks. I knew this was coming, but so soon? "Oh."

"I don't want to play softball! That's for girls. Only for girls," she adds in case her mother is tempted to point out that she **is** a girl. Scully's not tempted because she understands what her daughter means. "I mean... I like some girly things, like my garden, but softball isn't baseball."

Rather than remind April that some of their neighborhood's best gardeners are men, Scully decides not to derail the conversation. "Did Coach Miller say you have to play softball instead of baseball?"

He daughter frowns up at her. "No. He 'strongly suggests it' but said he's not gonna kick us off the team for being girls. Maybe."

Scully raises her eyebrows. "Maybe?"

"Yeah. That's why I'm mad."

She hardly blames her. What an infuriatingly imprecise thing to say. "That's..."

"It sucks!" April cries. When she calms a little, she says, "If we said no, and I did Mom, he said he's gotta talk to our parents."

To bully them into taking their little girls off the team, she realizes angrily. That's not happening, she vows. "If he brings it up, tell him Daddy and I would love to speak to him." _About being a sexist jerk_, she adds to herself.

"Okay."

Scully is about to give April a hug and tell her to wash up for dinner when a thought gives her pause. "What do Lydia and Jenna think?"

This elicits a huge sigh from April, cueing Scully to believe her hunch that there's even more to the story is correct. "Lydia didn't say it's unfair," April confides. "Jenna and I think she's just gonna go play softball."

Scully nods, seeing how this could be a blow. Not only will they lose a teammate if Lydia leaves the team, her defecting will weaken April and Jenna's arguments for staying. Already Scully can imagine Miller cajoling them for making a stink instead of rolling over like Lydia. "I'm sorry."

"Me too."

"Daddy and I will support you, okay?" Scully tells her, prodding her to get up. "We know how much you love baseball."

"Thanks."

"That's what we're here for. Wash up and help David and Jared set the table, please."

"Okay."

* * *

Mulder and Scully's Home  
March 15

It's a surprisingly nice late afternoon, which is why all of the kids, and Hannah and Rebecca Doggett as well, are playing outside. Page has surprised the adults by volunteering herself and Sammy to look after the younger kids, though the three smallest come in for parental attention now and then, especially two-year-old Rebecca. She's alternated her time between running around and dozing on her mother's lap.

It's during one of these times, while the dark-haired toddler 'recharges' according to her father, that her parents' current caseload comes up. Reyes, sitting in an armchair with her little one, looks at Mulder and asks, "Did you ever have a case where people seemed to be seeing someone who wasn't really there?"

"Of course," Scully says before he gets a chance to reply. "Most of those instances didn't make it into our files, though," she adds with a glance at Doggett. He doesn't say he's read all the case files, to her relief.

Reyes looks puzzled, however. "They're in secret files, then?"

Mulder laughs. "The X-files are the secret files," he proclaims after a moment. "You know that."

"Then-"

"Most of the time it turned out not to be an X-file," Scully says, shrugging. "Often mental illness, or drug abuse."

"Or severe sleep disturbances," Mulder adds. "Although there was something to that once..."

"Sleep disturbances?" Doggett asks. "Like a hag sitting on your chest, you mean?"

"Sure. There are types of hallucinations associated with both falling asleep and waking up," Scully agrees.

Turning to Reyes, Doggett begins, "Mon-"

She shakes her head. "I really don't feel like that's what's going on," she says, frustrated.

"What exactly is the case?" Scully asks, hoping to cut to the chase.

"Leyla found this one case-"

"You're letting Leyla find cases?!" Mulder crows in disbelief. "Seriously?"

"Only because she has ties to the law firm whose clients are having issues," Doggett is quick to explain. He probably only does so they don't question his judgment further.

"What firm?"

"Dunkirk, Scott, and Johnson," Reyes tells him. "Her sister is a lawyer there-"

"No," Scully intercepts, earning surprised looks from the FBI agents. "There's only one female lawyer at that firm."

Doggett goggles at her. "How could you possibly know that?"

"She's psychic," Mulder deadpans.

"So that's where April gets it," Reyes says, disturbing Scully by sounding sincere.

"Funny, Mulder," she complains before looking at Reyes. "One of our former nannies is the lawyer in question."

"Amy," Reyes says, surprising her in return.

"Right. Amy Penda."

"Amy Penda Harrison," Reyes corrects her. "Leyla's sister."

Scully and Mulder stare at each other. "No way!"

Doggett begins to laugh so hard he snorts. After a few seconds he waves his hands and pulls himself together. "I get it now. I totally get it now," he says when he can speak.

"You get what?" Mulder asks suspiciously.

"Her complete and total hero worship of you two," he explains. "She claims she knows about your cases through the billing department, but if her sister was your nanny she probably knew your names while she was still in school, long before she made it to the Hoover Building."

Mulder looks a little green and Scully imagines that she looks ill too. "Uh, Scully... Rachel and Michelle are both only children, aren't they?"

She wants to shrug and ask how they can know for sure since Amy had never mentioned Leyla that she recalled. And really, if a person was inclined to blab to someone about what she'd overheard them say about their cases, she could tell anyone. But he looked so uncomfortable that she just says, "They are."

"Maybe it's just a coincidence, anyway," Mulder says halfheartedly.

She doubts that, but... "Could be."

"They don't look much alike," Mulder still sounds dazed.

Reyes gets what he means. "I should say half-sister. I didn't quite get why she was so specific until we met Amy."

Scully nods, remembering a conversation Amy had with her once, and how frustrating it could be at her college to listen to people argue about whether it was 'better' to be dark or light-skinned like it mattered. If she shares a parent with Leyla, Scully can see how it might be particularly sensitive an issue. Brandon Scully can be touchy about the topic too, although Charlie has been reporting that the worst of his son's teenage moodiness seemed to have passed a few months ago.

Mulder looks moderately desperate to change the subject. "So, what exactly is going on? And is Amy in any danger?"

"I don't think she is," Reyes attempts to reassure him, clearly picking up on how important that in particular is to him. "From what she and Leyla say..."

* * *

Virginia County Correctional Facility  
Saturday  
11:41 p.m.

Inmate 401224018 is sleeping deeply, so deeply he doesn't hear his cellmate below him grumble, for the nineteenth time that night, about his snoring. The other two cellmates are too busy sleeping quietly to pay attention, and the evening wears on in its predictability as Inmate 400076014 tries desperately to fall asleep, in spite of his bunkmate's irritating snores.

Suddenly, the man above him shouts, thrashing around so wildly that he almost falls off his bunk. "Where-? Where'd that old lady go?" Inmate 401224018 yells, his eyes straining to see in the barely-lit darkness.

"What the fuck are you talkin' about?" the irritated man below grumbles, squeezing his eyes shut, like it would make him sleep faster. "This is a mens' only prison, idiot."

"No, there was…" and now the other man falters. "Where am I?"

"Prison," the inmate below repeats. "You retarded or somethin'?"

"What? No. I'm not supposed to be here," the man is working himself not into awareness, but into a frenzy. "I'm not supposed to be here!" He flails and stumbles around, nearly falling headfirst as he leaves his bunk. He grabs the bars of the cell door. "I'm not supposed to be here!"

"Shut up!" Inmate 401124735 snaps sleepily, turning over so that his back faces the room.

"Get me out!" Nestor Garcia, currently known as Inmate 401224018, cries out. He tries to shake the bars as if they would bend in his hands like Samson's, but they don't budge. "I want my lawyer!"

Inmate 400076014 now cracks an eye at the quiet man who's finally snapped. "Oh, shit," he muttered. Lawyers were never good for anything once you were behind bars.

* * *

Sunday

A car door slams, then another closes more gently before girlish voices call "Bye!" Then the car drives off. Page and April are halfway up the walk before Scully opens the front door.

"Did you have a good time?" she asks as they come in.

Mulder and Samantha have conspired to trade off getting their daughters - at least the oldest two in his case - together once a month. Little Drew comes over more often than that, but small boys require less planning for happily received co-activities than a group of older girls who range in age from nine to sixteen do. On this particular afternoon the girls have gone roller skating.

"Yeah. I fell down twice, though," April admits. "I think the floor is lumpy."

Scully waits, wondering if this is going to be one of the times Page teases her sister, or if she'll be supportive. Lately it could go either way. The wait is in vain, however, because Page says nothing. It's only as she's asking "what about you, did you have a good time too?" when she notices Page's glum expression.

"Hey." She puts an arm around her oldest. "Did something happen?"

"It's what hasn't," Page mutters, but she doesn't push away.

Scully frowns, trying to decide if she should push the matter or not. "Let's talk about it."

Page doesn't refuse, but she does look over to where two of her brothers are coming into the foyer. "Okay, but privately."

"Sure, we can talk in my room," Scully tells her. "I'll have your dad keep everyone else out."

Page nods, and then looks at April. "You can come too. It is girl stuff, any you're a girl too."

"Okay." April's tone is neutral enough, but Scully can tell that she's pleased to be included.

"Go on up," Scully tells them, and then goes to find Mulder.

He nods thoughtfully as she explains, and she's pretty sure that he's just happy that she's handling... whatever it is.

She's still trying to predict what's up as she opens her bedroom door in time to hear April say "…Alyssa was just being a brat."

It's Scully's immediately instinct to demand to know what her niece did, but she forces herself to hold her tongue; Page and Emily are still close, but as they get older, Page and Samantha's youngest girl clash more and more often. She's not sure if it's because they were much older when they met or due to incompatible personalities, but either way, it's not their first conflict by any means.

Both of her girls are on the king-sized bed, but there's still plenty of room so she climbs on too to their open amusement. Once she settles crossed-legged between them she asks "So... what are we talking about?"

Page looks at her sister before looking back at Scully. "Boobs."

"Boobs?" she repeats blankly.

This has Page guiltily correcting herself, "Breasts." She glances at April who nods encouragingly. "Is that okay?"

"Of course," Scully says quickly. She was just startled, not disapproving. "You know you can tell Dad and me anything."

April covers her face and then groans through her fingers, "We can't talk to Daddy about boobs!"

Scully wants to say that they really can, but decides that the comment wouldn't be very productive right then. "Well, you can always talk to me about this sort of thing."

"Good." April lowers her hands.

"What did you want to talk about specifically?" Scully prompts Page.

Page looks at a loss for words and just says "I..." before shrugging helplessly.

April just says, "Alyssa has 'em."

"Oh," Scully murmurs, thinking. Has Alyssa been bragging? Or teasing?

"It's not fair," Page tells her. "She's the youngest girl in her family and Auntie Samantha is going to take her bra shopping tomorrow. I'm the oldest and I'm not ready for a bra... or other stuff," she mumbles, blushing. "Not even close."

Although Scully knows what her daughter means by other stuff, she decides not to bring it up then, and focuses on the main concern instead. "Page, there's a whole range of time for a girl's development that's considered normal. It's too soon to worry that you'll be outside of it. I'm sure that there are a lot of girls in your grade who haven't started wearing training bras yet."

Even as she says that she becomes distracted by the memory of a conversation she'd had with Missy about the possible things a bra could train you to do. Missy had some hysterical suggestions.

"There are," Page acknowledges.

"So-"

"But they're not related to me!" Page exclaims.

"Emily is," April corrects.

"But the rest aren't," Page continues. "Shouldn't the girls in the same family be alike?"

"They can be, but aren't always. And when you compare cousins, it's more common for the daughters of sisters to be alike than of a brother and sister, like your dad and Samantha."

"Oh," Page says glumly.

"Emily's flat too," April states, and it's not quite clear if she's commiserating or just pointing out the obvious.

"And I have to be honest, neither Aunt Missy nor I were wearing a bra at eleven and a half, either."

"Twelve?" Page asks hopefully.

Scully shakes her head.

"Twelve and a half?" April asks. She's never been in as a hurry to grow up at as Page, but her tone suggests that 12.5 is about the limit she finds acceptable.

Both girls look disappointed when she shakes her head again. "Thirteen."

"Thirteen!" Page cries like their mother has just said thirty.

It makes Scully glad she didn't admit that it was more like thirteen and a half. Trying to convince them that it's not so bad, she says, "Up to sixteen is perfectly normal..." They don't take comfort from this, and frown alike instead.

Looking at April, Page says, "Mom must be right about it not necessarily being the same in families: look at Adrianna." It's only been within the last few months that their oldest same-sex cousin has grown past moaning about a perceived inadequacy in the same area of concern.

"That's true," April notes.

"Sixteen to begin developing, not finish developing," their mother can't help herself from clarifying. When she does, she nearly slaps her forehead, figuring that this will further alarm them. But they actually look relieved.

"Well, no girl in our family was that old," Page says. But looking right at Scully, she asks, "Right?"

"Right." It probably isn't the time to mention that one of their great-grandmothers was flat-chested all her life.

The girls exchange a look, then scramble off the bed, leaving their mother wondering if this means that they're through talking. Page's "Thanks, Mom" confirms it.

"You're welcome. And don't forget, you can talk to me about anything. Even that 'other stuff' too."

"Someday..." Page's cheeks are pink when she ducks out of the room.


	4. Things in the Dark

Scully eventually finds her husband, who is supervising their youngest children as they tidy up the playroom. William is cheerful enough as he puts back the cars he'd played with, but Zoe and Brianna are all scowls while being cajoled into storing dolls and stuffed animals in bins. Their mother enters the room just in time to hear Mulder's "what's the problem, here?" be answered by Zoe.

"Daddy, the cubby's dark. They don't like that," she explains, surprising Scully, who had honestly assumed they were just being resistant because they don't particularly like the new demands their parents have placed on them lately, not just letting them continue to let everyone else do things for them, in effort to keep the tiny girls from becoming spoiled.

"Maybe they like the dark," Mulder suggests, a hopeful note to his voice. "Your bunnies do, right?" he adds, thinking of busting them while playing in the middle of the night.

Predictably, Zoe shakes her head. "Bunnies do, but they don't."

He looks to Brianna, probably in hopes of convincing her to see it his way, but she shakes her head too. "They don't."

Kids, even his, make no sense sometimes. There's no rational reason the girls would believe some of their toys are afraid of the dark and others aren't, especially since they themselves aren't overly afraid of the dark, but they're little and logic isn't a preschooler's strong suit. Giving Scully a helpless look, he says, "Maybe a night lig-"

"No." She shakes her head just as insistently as her daughters. There's no reason for nightlight in a room the kids aren't supposed to be in after lights out. Putting one in for the comfort of toys would be the sort of coddling of the babies of the family that they're trying to avoid.

She sits on the floor and pulls the twin girls on to her lap. "I know that you care a lot about your dolls and stuffed animals, but their eyes aren't real like ours." She would like to convince them that their toys don't really have any feelings, but three and a half is still too young for that lesson. "They don't know that the cubbies are dark, so it can't bother them."

Brianna's expression is suspicious. "They can't see dark?"

"That's right," Scully agrees.

The twins look like they're on the verge of succumbing to Scully's logic… At least until William dropped the toys he was holding, resulting in a tremendous crash that echoes in the room. Everyone looks at him, startled.

"It's not true!" His face is almost as red as his hair. "You don't need real eyes to see stuff."

"Will-" Scully starts to say, unsure where to go with his odd declaration.

"What do you mean?" Mulder asks, staring at their youngest son like William had just announced he's an alien.

"Nothing," Williams says stubbornly. Rather than explain, he quickly picks up the things he dropped and put them away. Then, without saying anything else, he walks away.

For a moment Scully wonders if one of them should go after him, but she decides not to. Walking away from a conflict to cool off rather than continuing to exacerbate it is something kids need to learn, so forcing him to stay might not be the wisest thing they can do. Mulder gives her a wan smile, signaling that he doesn't plan to run after him, either.

"Well," she says to the wide-eyed little girls. "William might have a point, but he didn't mean these guys." She uses a hand to indicate their toys.

"He didn't?" Zoe sounds uncertain.

"Nope," Mulder declares. "He would've said."

"Oh."

This seems to satisfy the girls, making Scully glad that she didn't bring up things like plantain jellyfish, which probably just would've confuse them, even if they can see to an extent without any eyes.

"I'll tell you what," Mulder apparently decides out loud. "Tonight we'll put everyone in the cubbies, and I'll check on them later on. I'll let you know if they're not okay. But I've seen the sort of adventures they've had with you, and they all seem pretty brave to me."

"They are!" Zoe declares, nodding.

"No scaredy cats?" he goads them gently.

"Nope!" Brianna says decisively, and her twin agrees.

"Well then-" He bends down and sweeps them off Scully's lap and into his arms. They giggle until he hugs them and puts them on their feet. "We can't keep these brave ladies and gentlemen from having adventures in the dark, can we?"

"No!" they chorus. He begins to casually place a few of the toys in a cubby, then steps back when they follow suit.

After a couple of minutes all the toys are stowed away. "Good night, Toys," he says solemnly.

The girls say good night as well but use the names they're given the toys at the moment. "Good job," Mulder tells them. "Have Sammy help you find your robes in the laundry room, please. It's almost bath time."

"Okay!" With that they scamper out of the room.

As soon as they're alone, Mulder smirks and bows.

"Masterful," Scully says, giving a golf clap.

"I didn't sleep through _all_ my child psych classes," he explains.

"It shows."

His smile fades. "I just wish I knew what William's problem was."

Inside she squirms a little, not sure she wants to open a new can of worms. "I've heard him talking to nothing, a couple of times," she admits. "At least nothing there that I could see, anyway."

"Oh." He nods thoughtfully. "The ghosts have been pretty quiet lately, but I guess they've picked a new playmate."

It's all she can do not to sigh herself. After a decade of co-existing with their non-corporal roommates, it's no longer in her to deny their existence, but she's still not comfortable when they do something that forces herself to think about them. "Or he's pretending to see them," she says, but her heart's not really in it.

"If it comes up again, I'll talk to him," Mulder promises. "I know you're still not a big fan of the ghosts." He gives her a sidelong glance. "Even though they saved our lives that one time."

"I thanked them for that," she retorts before saying "oops" and covering her mouth.

He looks delighted. "You didn't!"

Now she does sigh. "The next night."

"After you and Bill declared war on Alex?"

"Later that night," she agrees, thinking briefly of Alex's first Scully family gathering. If anyone had asked her then if Missy would have actually made it to the altar with her former double agent before one of her siblings offed him, she would have laughed in the asker's face. It still amazes her a little that his fierceness in the field translates so well into being a good husband and protective father. And uncle, she remembers with a tiny smile. At least Alan has seemed to forgive him.

Completely unaware of her line of thinking, Mulder drags her back to the topic of ghosts. Grinning, he asks, "And as you secretly thanked them during the dead of night, did they say you're welcome?"

"Mulder, you know they don't speak," she complains.

"Did you see them, though?" It's clear that he expects her to say no.

But she did.

She'd felt stupid trying to find them that night, especially when she'd checked all the kids' rooms. She'd nearly given up, deciding it was dumb to have even tried considering how infrequently Mulder and Page had claimed to have seen them, but something had convinced her to go back downstairs.

The ghosts that had come to their rescue (she'd only realize there were more years later when one let Albert Holstein into the house) had been gathered around the Christmas tree, apparently enthralled by the lights that she and an equally exhausted Mulder had forgotten to shut off.

At first she was reluctant to disturb them, but she thought that she'd better because lights on the tree while everyone was in bed could present a fire hazard.

"Sorry," she'd whispered, leaning past one small ghost to unplug the lights, taking care not to touch the ghost as she did. They looked disappointed, so she promised to turn them back on the next day. While they nodded in apparent comprehension, she found herself thinking that maybe a timer for the lights could be purchased in the morning: an hour of lights on while everyone was in bed probably would be okay. And she'd check the fire alarm too.

"Hey," she'd said then. They looked at her even as she could see through them. "Thanks for your help tonight. We really needed it." Her hand had gone to her belly then, even though it was much too soon to really feel the baby they'd one day name Christopher.

Their response was to rush to her, which she'd only had a moment to be alarmed by before they gave her the briefest of hugs. Their wispy arms around her had felt like a light breeze, then the winked out like they usually did when they'd had enough attention from the living. She'd stood these, dumbfounded for a moment, before heading up to bed. She would have told Mulder then, but he'd been sound asleep. By the morning it had seemed too surreal to explain.

"Yes, Mulder, I did," she admitted. "They accepted the thanks."

'"Wow..." Mulder drawls. "I can't believe you've kept that from me all these years."

"Well, Mulder, a girl's got to keep a few secrets, or the romance might keel over and die."

"Oh, that's why we're still in love," he says with a goofy grin. "Good thinking."

"One of us had to plan for the long haul," she teases.

"Speaking of secrets, what was the secret girls-only powwow about? If you don't mind me asking."

"Of course I don't mind. And they were asking me about puberty."

"Puberty?" he asks skeptically. It's clear that he sees his eldest daughters as still very much his little girls.

"Or lack thereof," she clarifies.

"What brought that on?" he wants to know.

"Your sister is taking Alyssa shopping for a training bra tomorrow."

"Oh." He winces. "I can see how that might have brought the subject up."

"I explained that everyone develops at their own pace and they seemed to get it. I told them that they could come to either of us with their questions, but I think they'll probably ask me more often when they're biological questions." But then Scully does imagine that April could ask him a specific question... If ever her curiosity about breast development and sports collide. "Promise me you won't remind April of the Amazons if she ever complains about breasts affecting her pitching," she blurts her thoughts out.

Mulder gives her an odd look, but says, "Duly noted."

"Um... Thanks. I suppose you'll have your work cut out for you too when the boys begin to come to you with questions."

He surprises her by saying, "Sammy already has, actually."

"You're kidding!" Sammy will still be ten for another five months, so she can't imagine what might already be on his mind. Especially considering he still believes girls are icky. "What did he ask you?"

"Remember how the school had them do a project with seventh graders last month?" he asks. When she indicates that she does, he goes on. "At one point they had to write on the board, and Sammy thought it was odd that one of the older boys brought his book up to the board with him," he stopped with a suggestive look.

"Held in front of him about here?" Scully asks, miming what she means.

"Exactly like that," Mulder agrees.

"Poor kid."

"When Sammy got home he asked me why I thought the kid was acting so strange. So I explained."

"How'd he take it?"

"Probably as well as the girls did if you told them Scullys tend to be late bloomers." He gives her a knowing look; after too much wine one night Missy had entertained him and Alex by sharing the details of their training bra discussion.

She shakes her head. "Why did we foolishly think it would get easier once everyone was out of diapers?" They'd happily trashed the family's last potty back in July.

Mulder slings an arm around her. "I don't think this is necessarily harder. Just new and completely different. Besides, this is the most rewarding adventure you and I have ever gone on."

He looks surprised when she throws her arms around him, engulfing him in a huge hug. "You're right. This has been a pretty grand adventure so far."

"Dear diary," Mulder intones. "It's finally happened. Dana has become a sappy as I am. I don't know what we'll tell the neighbors."

He only stops laughing when she punches him in the shoulder. But not the one she shot him in, so he doesn't have a ready-made comeback when she says "Jerk."

"Come on. You know you love it."

"Even if it's true, picking on the crazy is a terrible thing to do."

"You're crazy? I seem to recall admitting that I'm crazy on our first anniversary," he says in a musing tone.

Scully just shrugs. "And now you've infected me."

"Oh really?" He wags his eyebrows at her. "Just wait until the kids are in bed. I'll infect you with something else."

"Promise?" she asks, standing on her tippy toes to reach up to kiss him.

Mulder pulls her back against him, earning a pleased chuckle from her. "Count on it."

"I will be counting the hours," she promises, verging on a giggle.

"See? I told you things would get better when we no longer had any infants in the house to get up for."

Once that might've hurt, even if he didn't mean for it to, but after more than three years she's okay with being reminded that their family has stopped growing. At least until their kids grow up and add to the family themselves. "What can I say? You were right."

"Oh," he says. "That's one for my diary too."

"Mulder," she sighs, but it turns into a laugh soon enough.

* * *

The FBI Basement Office  
Monday  
10:03 a.m.

"It's up to six now," Amy Penda Harrison says without preamble as she walks in, putting a stuffed folder on the X-Files' head's desk.

"Good morning to you, too," Doggett drawls, looking down at her dubious gift.

The dark complected young woman pulls the corners of her mouth up into a brief, professional smile, and promptly drops it. Doggett still can't get over how this woman and Agent Harrison are related - and that's almost entirely due to their personalities, rather than looks, as surprising is that might be - at least until he thinks of Dana and Melissa Scully and their differences of attitude and careers. Those two might look a lot more alike than the Harrison siblings do, but their mindsets are even more divergent.

Amy gives him a long-suffering look. "Agent Doggett, I've spent four hours this morning trying to talk a hysterical man down from the ledge so to speak, two hours trying to convince the firm that the prisoner in question was and still is actually guilty, and the last hour and a half in traffic. It hasn't been a good morning in a long time."

Doggett sighs. "I see," he says, and he does. "Agents Reyes and Harrison are out talking with Randy Johnson, the car thief. I was about to talk with his family. Wanna come with?"

She shakes her head. "No, thank you. I just wanted to let you all know that Nestor Garcia, Inmate 400076014 at the Virginia County Correctional Facility, saw an old woman in his dream and woke up." She sighs. "Who then woke up everyone around him asking for a lawyer, and when his court-appointed lawyer showed up, Garcia nearly tore his head off. Billie Joe Charles is a decent defense lawyer, but a rookie, and he was practically in tears, threatening to kill himself this morning because of Garcia." She looks both disgusted and fatigued by her younger colleague, and Doggett wonders if he ever has that expression around the prosecutor's younger sister. If he has, he feels a little bad about that now.

Then her lips purse in a manner reminiscent of her younger sister's (or perhaps they both are mirroring someone else?), and she says, "I just wanted to make sure Leyla was all right. Reopening closed cases is a nightmare, especially ones where prisoners insist on their so-called 'innocence', and my sister's more likely than others to be susceptible to alternative ways of thinking."

A corner of Doggett's mouth turns up. "You don't say," he half-grins. "Well, thanks for the heads' up, Ms. Harrison. And you're right, reopening closed cases are a nightmare, both for the cops and lawyers." He stands up, buttoning his jacket, and holds a hand out. "Thanks for stopping by."

Amy Harrison gives his hand a good, firm shake. "I really hope you come up with some answers," she says, sincerely. "Because if this doesn't stop, I've got a bad feeling the domino effect would wreak havoc on the firm."

And, by extension, her job, Doggett continues her line of thought. He doesn't answer her, but merely nods, and they leave the office in different directions. When the elevator doors close, he calls his partner. "Mon," he says, "we got another one."

"Crap," Reyes sighs on the other end. "Well, Johnson was a wash. He's definitely guilty, but also definitely confused about how he got imprisoned. Dreamed there was a scolding old lady and woke up in jail. Same story as the others. Who's the new one?"

"Nestor Garcia," Doggett says, glancing through the folder, "locked up in VCCF, looking at 25-life for armed robbery and multiple homicides. Kinda hard to prove his innocence, what with the security cameras clearly catching everything on tape, multiple witnesses, his fingerprints on the murder weapon, and more than a few spent casings found on his clothes. Guy was stupid and sloppy to pull off something like that, especially at a national chain bank."

Reyes groans, and Doggett echoes the sentiment. "I'd rather take him than the child molester," she says, and Doggett makes a face. He was about to offer the opposite, but mumbles agreement. He just hoped he would have a better hold on his temper than his wife, which was probably what she was counting on, but just barely when it came to scum like that. "Thanks, John," she says warmly, and he really can't argue with her there.

"Sure thing," he says. "How's Leyla holdin' up?"

"She's fine." Reyes probably smiles. And Doggett can almost see the blonde woman smile back at his girlfriend - that's the kind of woman Monica's like. "Don't worry about us, you're going to need all your strength to tackle Johnson's family. Oh, if any of them spit, I think it's normal."

"Oh, God," Doggett groans. "Don't stereotype."

"You, too, dear," Reyes says, but he can hear her smirking. Dammit.


	5. The Old Woman

Copley Square Complex  
4:47 p.m.

While Luke spends his free afternoons or evenings working at a restaurant, Gibson spends some afternoons volunteering at an after-school program. It was Katie's idea, really, since she's part of the college community outreach program, and figured that it would be a good idea to show the city that Bucky College wasn't just about video games. "Granted, the fact that it's made of 90% gamers is pretty obvious," Gibson had argued, and she'd rolled her eyes.

"Duh," she said, "but another thing is, hardly anyone outside the gamer community knows about our college. There's Cambridge, MIT, Harvard – hell, my parents knew what Berklee College of Music was before they knew of 'the Buckminster Fuller School of Design and Technology'," she deepened her voice to sound like her father. "Besides, it'll give kids something to shoot for other than just be game testers, game reviewers, and fast-food worker when they grow up gamer."

"When you put it that way," Gibson had trailed off, then smiled, shaking his head. "Okay. But just to warn you ahead of time, I'm not really a kid-friendly type of guy."

"You have younger siblings, you're a natural," Katie had argued.

He'd tried to bring up the whole mind-reading thing without really doing so. "Kids are so energetic," he said lamely, "they're kinda overwhelming if they're not related."

"Oh yeah, because having a kid sister and a baby sister are so mellow and quiet," Katie had snorted. "Come on, they won't bite." Then she'd paused. "Much."

And with that ringing endorsement (and the fact that community service would be counted for his scholarship), he'd joined Katie on her ill-fated outreach.

Actually, it isn't so bad. They'd started this in January, after Winter Break, and although they'd dropped from fifteen well-meaning tutors to just five, the kids really appreciate having newer equipment at the center. That, and the unintended actual help with homework and computers from friendly teens doesn't hurt, either. Gibson has found that he likes helping the girls out more than the boys, probably because they actually listen to him, while Katie is better with both genders under the age of eight than over. Thomas, Melody, and Shon are the other three rounding out their team, and together, "We're like the geek version of 'Sesame Street'," Melody occasionally claims.

It's true, Melody being American-born Chinese, Shon (nobody can really say either his full first or last name) is from Sri Lanka, and Thomas is Boston-born and bred and black. With Gibson and Katie being the token white kids, they meshed together with the likewise mixed group of kids pretty well, minus the singing and dancing, of course.

That is, when Shon isn't making trouble with the older boys like he is today. Gibson is actually looking forward to the end of the day, for once, because that will mean he'll get to throttle the idiot when the kids are gone. Thomas is no help because he's snapping pictures under Melody's instruction, and obvious to the kids' (and Shon's) antics.

At least he's gotten distracted by helping out first-graders Julie and Alice on their homework, and before he knows it, parents, guardians, and older siblings are picking up the kids.

"Thanks for helping my sister, Mister…" an older girl speaking behind him pauses, not sure how to address Gibson.

Gibson turns around, to see a large pair of dark brown eyes staring at him. Then he looks at Alice, who possesses the same pair. "Gibson," he says. "Just Gibson."

"Charlotte!" Alice beams, then blinks when the flash of Thomas's camera gets her in the eyes. "How come Uncle Johnny isn't picking me up?"

"Because I have an early day off, thanks to exams." Charlotte smiles down at her younger sister. Then she frowns and looks at Gibson like she's trying to figure something out. "Gibson… Praise?"

"Uh, yeah." He blinks.

She grins and shakes his hand. "I'm one of the beta testers, Hellokitty710," she says. "You and your partner have an interesting game, if it ever comes together."

Oh yeah, the gamer girl with the sharp critique. "Well, thanks to you, we're reworking it to be better." He smiles. "Good luck on your finals."

"You, too!" She waves. As they leave, he can hear Alice saying, "You go to school together? Cool."

The smile's still on his face when his girlfriend joins him. "New friend?" she asks.

He shakes his head. "Nah, one of the beta testers for me and Luke's game," he explains. "Alice's older sister."

"I didn't know she had an older sister," Katie looks thoughtfully at the door. Then she sticks her tongue out at Thomas when he snaps a picture of her. Thomas grins, then goes to snap a few more before all the kids leave with their guardians.

"Me, neither," Gibson says, but her stray thought pings him before he can shut it out. "Are you jealous?"

She blinks, then blushes a little. "No, why?"

He stares at her for a bit, glad that she hadn't deflected by asking why she would be jealous that Alice has an older sister, and then smiles. "I never thought I'd get my girlfriend jealous," he says honestly. "It's kinda cute."

Katie folds her arms and pouts. "What if I was crazy jealous? Would that be cute, then?"

"Nope," he says, putting an arm around her shoulder. "That would just be creepy. I'll stick with a little jealous. It's good for my ego."

"Jerk," she mutters, elbowing him a little.

He kisses her on the cheek. "You do realize you're my girlfriend," he says, "and I'm your boyfriend. Besides, I'm usually the one embarrassed to see guys ask you out, it's nice to know that even you think there's someone else who might be interested in me."

She sighs, then leans against him. "It's a game of numbers," she mutters, "there are more guys than girls at Bucky. And there's a chance that some random girl would ask you out. It sucks that she goes to our college, though."

He chuckles, then kisses her again. "Come on," he says, giving her a quick squeeze before starting to tidy up the place after Shon and the others have nearly trashed it. "Help me clean up, and then we can pretend to study while actually complaining about finals."

She tries to keep her frown on, really, but she ends up chuckling in spite of herself. "Fine," she says, pushing in chairs. "Have it your way."

He shakes his head, mock sadly. "No, if I really had it my way, we'd be doing something else other than studying or complaining."

Her head whips up so fast he worries that she just gave herself whiplash. "Gibson!" She blushes, but laughs.

"Like I said," he says and grins back. "We're gonna be reasonable tonight."

This seems to depress her a little. "I can't wait until midterms are over."

"Me, too," he says, and for more than one reason.

* * *

Meanwhile

Because it's not the dinner rush at the moment, Luke finds himself with enough time to actually look at his customers this evening. The middle-aged couple who are talking over dessert and coffee don't interest him very much, although he suspects they will leave a decent tip. But the raven haired woman who keeps looking at him, and not even sneakily, does grab his attention.

Her boldness when it comes to checking him out has him mildly concerned, and he's not all that surprised when she decides to talk to him when he brings her check to her. She blatantly studies his name tag for a moment before saying "Luke? That's not a name you hear very often."

"You hear it a lot more often than my brother's name." He shrugs.

He waits for her to ask what his brother's name is like most people would, but it's clear she doesn't care. "Luke, what's a boy like you doing waiting tables in a restaurant like this?"

Luke has to force himself not to smile. It sounds a lot like dialogue from one of the dopey black and white movies Hannah and Monica have forced him and Gibson to sit through. He guesses that would make her Bogart. "Oh, you know. It pays the bills while I finish my degree."

This has her looking interested. "Oh, a college student? What are you studying?"

"Game design," he says, hoping that she will find it just as boring as most girls do.

Unfortunately, she doesn't. "Really? You going to make video games when you grow up?"

Inside, he can't help but bristling a little bit. He is grown up. It offends him on some level that people don't seem to respect the fact that virtually all college students are legally adults. But, lecturing the young woman, who is probably all of three or four years older than him, would likely cost him his tip, so he keeps his mouth shut. And he doesn't talk to her about the plans that he and Gibson have for the future, their hopes about starting their own videogame company once they're out of school. It would only give her more to talk about if he did. "Hey, we'll see right?"

She nods. "Actually, I'm more interested in knowing what you're doing this weekend."

Luke gives her a puzzled smile. It's not as though he hasn't heard of patrons in the restaurant trying to pick up the wait staff, but almost always it's the girls who have problems with men trying to talk them into dating them. He glances over at where Benny and Tim are cleaning tables, and over to where Maria is talking to people she is going to get a table for, and realizes that if it gets out that a patron has tried to pick him up, he's going to be a subject of fun for at least the rest of the night.

"Well?" the woman asks, but she actually expects him to answer.

"Um…" Luke stammers. There really isn't a safe answer to that. Maybe he should say he's going to be babysitting his siblings over the weekend, but is afraid that it might be tempting fate to do that. What if something goes wrong with Dad or Monica, and he really does have to babysit, and it's partly his fault because karma thought you should be telling the truth to this random crazy stranger? _Oh God, I've been spending way too much time listening to Monica_, he tells himself.

She looks disappointed. "Girlfriend?"

Luke attempts to give her a confused smile, and nods slightly. He knows for a fact that it'd common enough to invent a significant other to put off somebody who is acting like a creeper. Although, it does come as somewhat of a surprise to him that there are women like that too, not just fat or balding men who think way too much of themselves.

"Too bad," she says, snagging the bill off of the small plate it rests on.

He just watches her go, no longer even hoping for a tip. If she doesn't come back and pester him again, it would be worth at least a hundred dollars to him.

Shaking his head, he returns to the older couple, and sees if they want a refill for their coffee. They do, by the time he looks up again, the woman is gone.

At least nobody seems to have noticed the awkward exchange. And he sure as hell isn't going to tell Gibson. Gibson would only ask him why he isn't interested in at least seeing what she wants, and he doesn't really feel like having to evoke their father's advice about strangers in order to get him to back off.

* * *

The FBI Basement Office  
9:02 p.m.

"This sucks," Agent Harrison says succinctly.

Doggett gives her a mirthless grin. "Ya don't say," he mutters, mindful of his partner's gaze.

Satisfied he won't bite Leyla's head off, Reyes allowed herself a sigh. "I wish there were some other sign or clue," she purses her lips. "There's the fact that your sister's firm is involved," she holds up a finger, "and that several successfully prosecuted perps are imprisoned," and another one flies up, "but there's no rhyme or reason saying which one will snap. Or that there are other prisoners out there who are snapping, but nobody's noticed."

Doggett's face scrunches up like he's just sucked a super lemon. "Please don't jinx us," he says.

"Oh, you believe in jinxes?" Leyla's eyes widened.

He groans, and Reyes feels a little sorry for him. He's actually had a worse day than they did, since the people he'd talked to made theirs seem like Sunday school teachers. "John, you know as well as I do that things are going to get worse before they get better," she says, in as reasonable tone as possible, "especially since we have no other clues or leads."

"Yeah, we do," he says, surprising both her and Leyla.

"We do?" the blonde woman asks, but his partner's eyebrows are also up.

He nods tiredly. "There's someone behind the scenes," he says, "someone pulling their strings, or at least, flippin' on and off the control switch." He gives Reyes a look. "And how do you profile a shadow?"

"It's an old woman," Leyla interjects.

"You mean, because that's the image the cons see before they 'wake up'?" Doggett says, his tone suggesting the quotation marks. "I doubt it. But the fact that there is one, in spite of how different she appears according to ethnicity, means that an old woman means a lot to our suspect, probably someone who influenced them into their vigilante tendencies."

"Vigilante?" Reyes frowns.

"Yeah," he says. "They're obviously not working with law enforcement, or we'da heard of them by now. I don't know if it's hypnotism, or drugs, or what, but this old woman has somehow shaped our suspect into someone who pushes the guilty into their punishment like somebody would sacrifice pawns…" his voice trails off, a frown deepening the lines in his brow. "I may not be as good as Gibson when it comes to chess, but even I know playing people like pawns, even if they're guilty, isn't the best move." He exhales.

Reyes' frown, like her partner's, has deepened. "It's too bad we don't know who this old woman is. We could try to lean on her to make our suspect turn him or herself in."

"So you think our suspect could be a woman?" Leyla says carefully.

"It could be," the brunette agrees. "But what triggered these episodes in the first place? Injustice happens all the time, what made this particular person snap? Did the old woman's influence escalate, telling them to do something about it? Or did someone take them away from the old woman's care, causing them to react?"

"What if the old woman died?" Leyla chimes in. The two senior agents look at her. "It's a reasonable assumption."

"Yeah, it is," Doggett says, a little sorry to sound surprised. "Following that, what if the old woman isn't the trigger, but she is the safety? What if our suspect had the capability to do-" He shakes his head slightly. "-whatever it is they do, and the old woman kept them from doing it? Once she died, nobody could tell our suspect 'no' or 'stop', somehow, this old woman had the emotional capability to keep our suspect from doing anything."

"But for how long?" Reyes picks up the thread. "This person could be anywhere from their teens to their sixties, there's no telling if our suspect's activities will escalate as time goes on."

"So far, all they've done is confess, then wake up." Leyla nods. "Nothing violent, at least towards the criminals."

"Yet," Doggett stresses. "Our suspect has this ability, who's to say that they won't step it up?"

Reyes walks over to the desk and picks up the files. "The timeline," she murmurs.

"Timeline of what?" Doggett asks, but subsides when he sees her trying to put something together.

After a few minutes, she looks up. "I didn't notice it before, because we were too busy looking for patterns among the victims themselves," she says, "but there's a pattern of timing. Each new arrest coincides with a 'wake up', like our suspect can only juggle so many people at a time. It looks like three people is their limit," she has the files lined up on the desk so that Doggett and Leyla can see what she is talking about. "That's pretty impressive, especially since the suspect seems to have complete control from arrest to denial. I'm pretty sure we can cross voodoo off the list." She looks at Leyla. "Since they were all checked for drugs and came out clean for anything like tetrodotoxins or dissociative drugs like datura." She smiles at the younger agent's rare skepticism. "Trust me, if anything odd shows up on drug test, they'll retest until they come up with something that fits."

The blonde woman pouts for a bit. "But it could be something like hypnotism or possession, right?"

"Or it could be someone like Robert Modell with psychokinetic ability," Doggett notes. Both women stare at him, making him a little uncomfortable. "I _am_ the head of this division, remember? I'm pretty sure I've read most of the files around here, too."

After a moment, Reyes smiles slowly at her partner, making him blush. "You never fail to surprise me," she says affectionately, making Leyla giggle.

_How does she make me feel like a ten-year-old with a crush in the middle of a frustrating investigation?_ Doggett wonders, then gives up. He may know a lot about the X-Files, and he may know a lot about women, but he'll never really know everything about Monica Reyes, and he found he's fine with that. "Enough of that," he grumbles, trying, and failing, to hide the pinkish tinge on his cheeks. "We got bigger fish to fry."

* * *

Tuesday  
12:39 p.m.

Alan gives a quick glance at the scene the kitchen windows gives him. It is another gloomy, blustery day, and while he doesn't mind walking out that kind of D.C. weather, he knows the kids probably would. "Change of plans, gang," he says to the trio, already bundled up in their coats and shoes.

"Awwww." William pouts, and his little sisters do the same.

Their larger-than-life nanny snorts. "You know us nannies have the super-power to resist cute little kid eyes, don't you?" he asks.

The redheaded boy immediately drops his expression in favor of a regular scowl, while his sisters tried to keep it up, but quickly tire of going against the scarred granite face that is Alan Carruthers.

"Fine," the little boy says. "So _now_ what are we gonna do?" he whines.

"Hold on," Alan puts a hand out when he sees the kids starting to take off their coats. They look up at him in confusion. "Just because I said 'change of plans' doesn't mean we're not going out today."

"But it's all gray and yucky," William complains, and while Brianna nods, Zoe looks mildly confused.

Alan smiles. "We can go into the car, where I'll drive us to someplace fun," he says. "First, let me call your parents first to see if it's okay."

They nod, remembering the last time Alan got big-time scolded by Uncle Alex when they went out without asking first. At least, that's how Alan put it.

When he comes back, there's a big smile on his face. "Okay, we're going to the museum!"

All three Scully-Mulderlings stare at him in confusion. "That's boring," William says simply.

"Not this museum." Alan grins.

* * *

Half an hour later, they're walking to the museum from the street parking William squints up from his end of the kid sandwich, he stared at the plain face of the building. "This looks boring."

"That's part of the plan." The big nanny nods. "Spies are never what you expect."

"Spies?" the twin girls chorus.

Alan nods as they walk into the International Spy Museum. "Yup. A friend of mine works here, she's funny."

"Your friend is a spy?" William asks as their nanny pays his own entrance fee.

The large man chuckled as they walk inside. "No, better than that. She's my best friend."

Now all three children are frowning, but before they can figure out what he's talking about, he throws himself to the ground, followed by a flying metal rod hitting the wall. "Not bad," a woman's voice says from behind, and they spin around.

Whatever they were expecting, spy or otherwise, they're dreadfully disappointed. She looks, as William said earlier about everything, boring. With short brown hair, thick glasses, gray sweater, a long skirt, she looks nothing like the spies in the movies and more like a librarian. "Not bad," the librarian-like lady repeats in a sarcastic tone. "Good thing I wasn't a real bad guy, huh?"

Alan picks himself up off the floor easily and hands her the cane back. "You don't go after kids," he says, and she smiles a little. "Kids, this is Joanie Nakasone, my best friend. Joanie, this is William, Brianna, and Zoe. They're my newbies."

"Do best friends throw things at each other?" William frowns.

His nanny shakes his head. "Only this one," Alan answers, "she only gets to do that because she's good at it."

She rolls her eyes. "And because Alan was once _my_ newbie. Admit it, big guy, Baghdad would've been a lot scarier for you if I wasn't your boss."

"You were his boss?" Brianna's now the one squinting up. The lady looks as tiny to Alan as her mommy does to her daddy. Then again, Mommy sometimes bosses Daddy around, so maybe that's not too surprising.

The woman smiles briefly, and William thinks it's the same kind of smile his mom gives to people when they don't call her "doctor". "I was a captain," she answers, "this big lunk here was a staff sergeant, which, technically, meant I was his boss."

"So you guys were in the mill-tree?" William asks.

Alan leans down and whispers, "She still is, but it's a secret." And he puts a finger to his lips.

"Oh yeah," William whispers back and nods. This is a spy place after all, he thinks, even though Joanie-the-librarian-looking lady is rolling her eyes.

"Anyways, I think you're all here for the official tour?" she says, tilting her head slightly, but her tone less a question and more like an order.

Alan straightens up and nods, and so do the three children. And, in spite of themselves, the children are entertained, especially when Joanie takes her legs off (apparently, only special captains get to have fake legs from the knees down and use them for all sorts of things) and they crawl through the ducts in the ceiling, spying on various people below them. Alan, however, is the only one who can not only tell that he's being spied on, but exactly who is above his head. Well, everyone except Joanie, which, to William's mind, is totally unfair, even if she doesn't have any feet to scrape along the ductwork.


	6. A Sick Feeling

Saturday

One weekend morning Emily wakes up early and realizes that her parents have company. Or scratch that, looking out the window she can see that Missy's car is gone, so it must be that her mother has already gone to the post office to mail out packages to her customers like she said she would. Addy and Ryan are still in bed as she makes her way down the hallway.

Curious about who might be visiting her father, Emily sneaks forward, coming down the stairs just enough to see into the kitchen. Her father is sitting at the table having coffee with a blonde woman that she vaguely recognizes. After a moment she places her: the last time she saw the woman was about the time when her cousins' grandfather died. Emily didn't think that she, Page, or Sammy were supposed to realize then that this woman had been keeping an eye on their family while the grown-ups were concerned that somebody might bother the kids, but Emily had noticed her back then. The woman didn't ever do anything too suspicious but Emily had made a game of looking for her at the time. Then her father and Uncle Mulder were back, and the woman went away.

Now, years later, Emily wonders why she's around again. A nervous worry that there might be something else wrong with the family springs up in her mind, but she tries hard to damp it down. Her father looks calm. If there was a problem…well, her dad isn't known for keeping his calm when it comes to threats to his kids. Or their mother, either.

"I'm just saying, Alex, you could be useful," the woman is explaining.

"And I told you, I'm not interested in being of use," Alex replies in a way that suggests that Emily has missed quite a lot of their conversation already.

"Alex…"

The woman reaches for his good hand, but he yanks it away with a hiss. "Don't," he says sharply.

Emily supposes that she shouldn't be amused, but she is. Her mother might be pleased to see that sort of reaction to another woman, especially one as pretty as the one sitting in the kitchen. Emily may not have any idea what's going on, but she is 100% positive that there's nothing funny going on between her father and his visitor.

The woman's response is to give him a reproachful look. "I'm surprised at you."

Alex narrows his eyes at her. "Marita, how on earth could you be surprised that I'm not interested in getting back into…this?"

The blonde shrugs elegantly. "After what you suffered at the hands of the Russians, I thought you'd still be eager for settling old scores."

_Russians?_ Emily finds herself thinking. She was very young when it happened, but she knows that her father lost his arm when he was on a trip to Russia. It sounds like the woman is implying that it wasn't an accident like she always assumed. Hadn't her mother said there had been a car accident? Or had she just made up an explanation that made sense on her own?

"Spare me," Alex snaps. "They've already taken one whack at me, I can't imagine what you're thinking now. Why on earth would I try to tangle with them again, after what happened the last time?"

Marita sighs. "Alex, Alex. I'm afraid you been playing for the white team for far longer than is good for you."

"It's over," Alex growls, making Emily, still unseen, wince. "That part of my life is over. Completely over. I have no interest in ever revisiting it."

"Too much to lose these days?" the woman asks, tone sardonic.

"Yes." He glares at her. "I _do_ have too much to lose. Why don't you go find a nice, unassuming man who has no idea about what sort of person you really are and have a baby or two before it's too late, Marita? I think you'll find your taste for spying and intrigue will be lost if you do."

Emily begins to gasp, but stops herself by putting a hand over her mouth before any sound escapes. It can't be true, can it? Her father, spying? Spies are bad, aren't they?

"Funny," the woman hisses. "I suppose you have the right sort of guy in mind for me even."

He shrugs. "Too late. If you had asked for a fix-up a couple of years ago I could have set you up with one of Mulder's geek friends. But one of them's engaged, and the other two seem to have found women willing to put up with them as well. However, if you would like some help filling out an online dating application, I'd be happy to help you edit it." He pauses for a second, looking thoughtful. "Although… What are your feelings on famous but completely obnoxious authors? Mulder's cohost might be less of the unbearable jerk if he ever got laid."

Pink spots appear on the woman's cheeks, and that's the only way that Emily knows for certain that she is upset. She doesn't move in a way that betrays her lack of emotional control, but very calmly stands up and pushes in the chair. Looking back at Alex, she says, "Mark the calendar, Alex. This is the day you could have done something about what's going to come. And you decided not to."

His only response is to waive dismissively, and cast a glance towards the door he hopes she will exit from. She does. Alex finishes his coffee, then washes both mugs. When he makes a move to leave the kitchen, Emily scrambles back up the stairs. If her father saw the look on her face, and all the questions there, he'd ask her about it. And that's not a conversation she wants to have right then.

* * *

JCTTIOT Film Studio

To Mulder's surprise, they don't immediately come back from one of the last commercial breaks of the day. Instead, the studio lights dim, and Wayne comes over to speak to them. Looking directly at Scully he says "Dana, you have a phone call. It's your nanny."

She looks surprised, but mutters thanks before hurrying away. Mulder looks at their producer, and the shorter man shrugs. "I think your littlest ones are sick."

"Oh," he says, beginning to worry. Alan is reliable and they have faith in him that he can handle a lot of situations, but if he's calling because the twins are that sick…

Wayne gives him a weak smile. "I think we may call it a day early today."

"You do?" he asks, raising an eyebrow in a way that would make Scully proud.

Their hyperactive producer shrugs. "You and Dana are very professional, but even professionals don't make very good arguments for TV if they're worried sick about their kids."

The conversation that Scully and the nanny have is brief, and Scully looks worried when she returns to the stage. "Wayne, I hate to ask-" she starts to say but he cuts her off.

Pulling out the megaphone that he enjoys very much carrying around, Wayne puts it to his mouth. "Okay, people. We're going to call it a night. Enjoy your paid time off."

As he had started his statement the crew looked a bit more upset than Mulder and Scully's fellow cast members, but knowing that they were getting off work two hours early with pay made that apprehension disappear.

"What's wrong?" Mulder asks his wife as soon as she is comes close enough to speak to without yelling.

She frowns. "Zoe and Brianna have high fevers and are throwing up. Alan was able to call and get an appointment for about an hour from now. He asked that one of us take them to it, though."

"Of course," he says quickly. It's wonderful to have somebody looking up to the kids, but he doesn't actually expect the nanny to shuttle them to and from doctors' appointments. Not when he knows that Scully always wants one of them to hear what the doctor has to say firsthand.

XxX

It doesn't take long for everything to start to shut down for the night. By the time that Mulder has changed in his dressing room and scrubbed off the makeup he still doesn't enjoy wearing, the lights are down, and the crew is beginning to file out. Mary Green has already left, but Reed is still hanging around. It does not surprise, nor delight Mulder when he is approached by the skeptic.

He fully expects to get a ration of crap from Reed, but the irritable author looks strangely sympathetic when he asks, "Your kids are sick?"

"Just the youngest two of them," Mulder says, before quickly adding "so far, and only them altogether God willing."

Reed nods. "I hope they get better quickly." Mulder looks at him, astonished, waiting for him to snidely add something about resuming their taping schedule, but Reed goes on. "I'm beginning to worry about my father's health too. Mom died about ten years ago, and I do what I can for him but he insisted that he's happier in an assisted-living complex than he would be if he had moved in with me like I suggested." Fortunately, the author takes this moment to rub his face, so he doesn't see the utterly shocked look on Mulder's face. The fact that someone like Reed might've asked a parent to move in with him is practically beyond comprehension. "So unfortunately, I only tend to hear about his various illnesses after he gets better. And lately, he's been getting sicker more often."

"That's rough," Mulder manages to get out. "Both my mother and Dana's are doing okay so far, but I know that eventually…" He has never told anybody, especially not Scully, but for a while now he has harbored the vague fantasy that someday maybe they can convince Teena and Maggie to move in together if and when they both get to the point where living alone is no longer feasible. It would be much easier to hire help for them if the help only had to go to one place. Somehow he doesn't think that either of their mothers would find that to be as ingenious an idea as he does.

Reed returns a grim smile. "Well, at least this job pays enough to make helping out our folks easy on the wallet."

Mulder has never spoken to the author about their compensation before, but even he has to admit that being a quasi-TV celebrity pays quite a bit better than being an FBI agent did. It certainly makes the task of raising nine children a lot more manageable than it is for many big families. "That's true," he says at last.

Both men can see that Scully is headed towards him, so Reed nods, and mutters "good luck" before wandering out the door after one of the cameramen.

"Did Alan call back?" Scully asks, looking concerned.

"No, why?" He asked in return, puzzled by her question.

She relaxes. "You just had the strangest look on your face. Made me worry that something happened."

"Oh, something happened all right. I'm beginning to get the strangest feeling the Reed might be human after all."

"Okay…"

Mulder shakes his head. "I guess you had to be there."

Scully loops her arm through his. "Come on Mulder, we have sick babies waiting for us."

He nods, and they start off, but he wonders if he should correct her. Zoe and Brianna might be _their_ babies, but they're not babies any longer. Maybe it's too soon to start on that, especially knowing that she has taken the completion of their family harder than he has. As long as she doesn't infantilize the girls it probably doesn't harm anything to call them their babies.

* * *

Since no one is actually bleeding or dying, Mulder curbs the impulse to speed home, and instead keeps car within a few miles of the speed limit. They wouldn't help anybody if they managed to get into a fender bender before they could take the kids in to see their pediatrician. As he drives, however, he sneaks glances at his wife's face, and isn't at all surprised that she looks extremely apprehensive. Their kids have not gotten sick nearly as often as most peoples seem to do, so perhaps they don't have as much experience with childhood illness as they could. Especially considering how many kids they have who have managed to avoid so many of their classmates' illnesses.

"They're going to be okay," Mulder says quietly at a stop sign.

"I know." She's looking pinched and worried.

"Do you?" he presses gently.

Scully sighs. "I don't know how my sister did it."

"Did it?" he repeats, initially uncertain about what she means.

She waves a hand. "I think that most people would agree that Missy and I don't have the same temperament. But still, she managed to do a good job looking after Emily at the beginning, when she was still so sick. I mean, it's a miracle that she is no longer as ill as she was when she was tiny, but for a while there…" Scully closes her eyes. "You know, it wasn't sure that Emily was going to make it."

This surprises him so much that he doesn't leave the stop sign until someone behind them beeps their horn. Scully has never once admitted that she worried that Emily would die, too. He of course worried than Emily would die because in another when she did. Scully didn't know that, at least not until Elsbeth arrived that Christmas Eve years later to tell her and Doggett everything. "Oh."

She opens her eyes to give him a weak smile. "And you, you must've been scared to death."

If anything, he's even more astonished. The subject of the other timeline he lived through almost never comes up. "I was. And I hope you don't hate me for saying this, but I worried even more for her when I realized that she was going to be in your sister's care instead of yours. I'm not saying that I thought Missy was a flake but…"

"But you did?" she asks, smiling a little instead of frowning like he worried she would.

"Well…"

"She really stepped up though, didn't she?"

"She sure as hell did. These days, thanks to her precise and careful adherence to doctor's orders you would hardly know that Emily was ever a sick kid," he says, allowing admiration to seep into his voice. Because he really does admire how well Missy handled everything. And then, later she had Addy to deal with too, and in a way that was probably even harder. One spectacular temper tantrum aside, Missy kept things together in both cases a lot better than he ever would've given her credit for.

"It's too bad that Emily still needs to get shots on a monthly basis, but it beats heck out of being in the hospital like when she was little."

_Or being dead,_ Mulder silently adds. When she drifts off into silence too, he reaches for her with his free hand. "It just sounds like they have a bad cold."

"I know." But then she sighs. "What do you think the Sims thought when Emily first got sick?" she asks quietly. "I know that Emily wasn't sick from birth, not quite."

"Scully…"

She shakes her head. "I know, don't borrow trouble."

As much as he wants to tell her that she is being silly, he finds that he can't. So far they have been extremely lucky when it comes to the health of their children. But he can't promise her that they always will be. And now, now that she and John Doggett know the truth of what he did, there are no more do overs. So like everyone else, they just have to muddle through and make the best of anything that gets thrown at them. Right then, sitting in traffic, he feels less equipped to handle that than he usually does.

* * *

A Short Time Later

"Sorry to get you out of work like this," Alan says, wringing his hands. "They're just sicker than any of the other kids I've worked before."

Scully nods. "Are they younger too?"

Alan looks confused for a moment. "Actually, they are. Before this the youngest kids I've worked with were Will's age."

"It seems to me that the younger the sick kid is, the more alarming their symptoms seen," she tells him, thinking back to when one of their older brothers had gotten a terrible cold when he was much younger than the girls. Although, at that point Mulder was still missing, so it probably felt harder to deal with than it normally would have been if only for that reason.

"Okay…"

Scully snags Mulder by the arm. "Don't worry, Alan, we'll go up and get them."

It doesn't take very long to understand why Alan found it necessary to call them. The small twins are decidedly not well. As soon as they see their parents they begin to cry and hold out their arms like they might have when they were upset and half the age they are now.

Mulder reaches for Zoe and hugs her. "It's okay. Daddy is going to bring you to see the doctor, and we'll make sure you're feeling better really soon."

Usually mentioning the doctor is not met with tearful nods, or pitiful whines of agreement, so Scully is sure that they don't just look awful. She picks up Brianna and bundles her up while Mulder does the same for Zoe. Heat pours off of Brianna's skin as Scully struggles to get her into her coat, and she feels bad about putting winter outerwear on somebody who is already that hot. But, she realizes it's still necessary.

After they carry the kids out to the car she asks, "Are you sure that you want to be the one to bring them to the pediatrician?" of her husband as they buckled the little ones into their booster seats.

"Yes," he says simply, as he closes the door behind Zoe. "I think that you'll do a better job figuring out if any of the other kids are sick when they get home. And William, of course."

"Of course," she says, startled a little bit to think that she hadn't already wondered if William is going to come down with this virus too. She quickly kisses Mulder's cheek and says "thanks."

Mulder nods, and goes to the driver side of the car. "If there is anything really wrong, worse than cold, I'll be sure to call you immediately."

"I know you will."

He nods again, and then slipped behind the wheel of the car. Before he closes the driver side door, she can hear the girls coughing again. They truly sound awful.

Inside, Alan looks fretful, which on some level amuses her. She'd seen that look before, but on Rachel's face the time that the three oldest kids all came down with chickenpox at once. Seems very strange to see an almost identical expression on the big man's face as had been on their very young nanny's years earlier.

It doesn't surprise her at all when he sounds both nervous and apologetic. "Sorry I had to get you out of work, but…"

She shakes her head. "Don't worry about it. Kids get sick. And you're right, it is easier for the doctor's office to speak to us directly rather than have you try to wrangle two sick kids, as well as one well one, and take notes."

"Still…"

"So," she says, hoping that she can jolly him out of being guilt-ridden. "How does William seem?"

Alan looks up sharply, apparently startled. She clearly is not the only one who forgot to wonder if William has brought home the same virus from their preschool/kindergarten. The school is big on sharing, and like all programs that are full of very small children, one of the first things that the kids learn to share is their germs. She can't really blame the school since the very natures of small boys and girls makes it happen.

"Will? The big guy seems to be doing good. I took his temperature too but it was normal. And, unlike his little sisters, he hasn't thrown up anywhere."

Scully suppresses a cringe. Apparently the poor nanny has had to do cleanup too, not just comfort the sickies. "That's good."

"He can be quite the reasonable kid when necessary," Alan adds. "When I got them from school and saw how sick the girls were I told him that they were going to need him to be quiet so they could get some rest. And, he's been quietly playing in his room ever since."

"It's sort of fortunate that he has the ability to entertain himself," Scully agrees. "Not all children with so many older siblings do."

"I hear you. He and his imaginary friend seemed to be having a good old time, at least whenever I've looked in on him."

"Oh. I didn't realize he was still playing with his invisible friend." Scully feels annoyed at herself for not having realized that this was still going on. Mulder had explained that psychologically healthy to have an imaginary playmate that William's age, but it still strikes her as a little bit hard to accept. She supposes that it makes sense, considering that his sisters aren't always up for his games and the older kids are at school for hours after the three youngest come home for the day.

"Yup. It's kind of cute actually. Whenever I walk by the room I can hear him saying 'Angel, let's do this' or 'no, it's your turn to be the boss' like he can actually see somebody there." Alan has been smiling, but his expression quickly turns to alarm when Scully sits down abruptly. "Are you all right?"

"Are you sure about the name?" she asks shakily.

"Am I sure that he calls his imaginary friend Angel?" Alan asks, looking like he's not sure that's what she's getting at. She must look nauseous because he mutters, "Maybe I should get you a bucket, I think you might be getting with the girls have."

Scully shakes her head. "No, I'm not sick."

"But…"

Sighing, she looks down at her hands. "If you didn't tell me the name of his imaginary friend, I probably wouldn't be telling you this…" Looking up at the nanny she says, "We lost a baby before we had William."

"I'm so sorry," Alan quickly exclaims.

"I was broadsided at a traffic light when somebody ran the red. I wasn't hurt too badly, but the baby was only twenty weeks gestationally, and, and she didn't make it." She can tell that this story doesn't really make that much sense to him from looking at his face. So, looking him in the eyes she adds, "Mulder and I named her Angel."

Alan looks floored. "Oh."

"It was hard. Sometimes, it still is. But, maybe we wouldn't have William if we had her. At least not the same William, I think." She shrugs, unable to articulate whether or not she feels that a conception put off a few more months would have made William a completely different boy. On the very rare occasions that the topic has come up Mulder has insisted that their William is the same William as the one she can't remember. She's not sure she's so accepting of that herself, but it matters much more to him than it does her considering he knew William before and she didn't.

Frowning at Alan, she goes on, "William doesn't know. Sammy and Page were old enough at the time to sort of remember what happened, but they don't talk about it either. I think Mulder actually asked them not to talk about it to the younger kids. So, William coming up with the name Angel on his own…"

"I can see how that would be unsettling, him just thinking of the same name," he says, looking uncomfortable.

_But is that it?_ she finds herself wondering. Did William come up with the name all on his own? Or did the girl they can't see somehow tell him that her name is Angel? It strikes her is ridiculous, but once upon a time, back before William himself was born a very small ghost wrenched her back in time so that she could meet Mulder's late uncle. If a ghost could do that, and she was still convinced that it had actually happened, how could she deny that Angel might still be around and speaking to her younger brother?

_Oh God, I'm going to be committed_, she finds herself thinking furiously as Alan looks at her. "I think that Mulder and I will have to have a discussion about this. Don't worry about it. Just let him continue to play with whoever he wants, even if we can't see them ourselves."

Alan looks a little more relaxed now. "You know, I did work with this one little boy, Felix, whose imaginary friend was one of those giant tube balloons that waved back and forth outside of car dealerships. That one was hard to deal with. Because those things creep me the hell out."

Scully tries to summon up a smile for him. She isn't sure that having an animated balloon as your imaginary friend is any more alarming than possibly seeing your dead sister.

Fortunately, before she has to respond, the front door opens and the older kids let themselves in. The conversation between herself and Alan has been so intent that she didn't realize that the bus had dropped them off.

"Mom! You're home early!" Page says, looking pleased.

Scully holds out her arms. "Come here, all of you. Dad is taking Zoe and Brianna to the doctor's and I'm going to take everyone else's temperature to make sure that they are the only ones who are sick." Eventually she is going to have to go up to see William, and it bothers her a little that she feels apprehensive about doing so. Hopefully he won't be talking to anyone, ghost or imaginary friend, when she sees him.

"I'm good," April tells her and Page nods in agreement.

"Me too," David insists. And Jared speaks over him "I'm not sick either."

"I'm not sick either, Mommy," Christopher adds, much more quietly than the twins.

But Sammy looks a little green and it hardly surprises her when he says, "Mom? I don't feel so good," before running into the bathroom to throw up. Thank God most of the kids are big enough to have the presence of mind to at least try to make it to the bathroom rather than simply throw up wherever they are.

Mulder calls her from the doctor's office and lets her know that the pediatrician thinks that it is just a case of gastroenteritis, somewhat worse than typical but nothing much to worry about, which she sort of expected considering the entire family gets flu shots every year. She finds this good considering that they only have three down for the count.


End file.
